


Shutterbug

by Yiichi



Series: NECKZ n' THROATS [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Awkwardness, Barebacking, Blow Jobs, Bottom Stiles Stilinski, F/M, Feelings, Hand Jobs, Humor, Jealousy, M/M, Masturbation, Miscommunication, Modeling, Neckz 'n' Throatz, Past Relationship(s), Photography, Sassy Peter, Slow Build, Top Derek Hale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-21
Updated: 2014-03-19
Packaged: 2017-12-03 03:42:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 53,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/693709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yiichi/pseuds/Yiichi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Derek Hale is the photographer for the family-run magazine 'NECKZ 'n THROATS', a periodical aimed solely at the werewolf demographic. When the model for their monthly bails out, the staff are hard-pressed to find someone else to photograph at the last minute.</p><p>Stiles Stilinski is a college student, scraping by on odd jobs to pay for his education fees. When his long-time friend Lydia finds him a one-off gig at a photo-shoot, he figures it couldn't hurt.</p><p>As contrary as their natures appear to be, Derek finds the most fascinating piece of art at the end of his lens.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> **UPDATE 20/03/2014: The fic has now been completely beta'd! Also chapter 11 and the Epilogue have been separated (hence chapter 12), and new content has been added! YAY!**
> 
> Inspired by a ridiculously wonderful prompt on Tumblr from [Helenish](helenish.tumblr.com).
> 
> Some info on the magazine's history provided by the gorgeous and clever [Rainglazed](rainglazed.tumblr.com) and [Helenish](helenish.tumblr.com).
> 
> This will (eventually) have my first writings of smut, so please be kind! I'm not entirely sure how many chapters it'll turn out to be, but I do plan on having it become multi-chapter, and just writing as it comes naturally.
> 
> I also have full-time studies with crazily-long intensive hours, so please forgive me if the updates don't come one right after another. Enjoy!
> 
> Beta'd by my beautiful boo [Michele](http://bookgeekgrrl.tumblr.com). YOU ARE THE MOST BEAUTIFUL SLICE OF PIZZA EVER ♥
> 
> Visit me on [My Tumblr](http://yijitumbles.tumblr.com/)!

“I turned down Jeremy’s request for a pay-rise, and so he’s bailed out on us again for the shoot,” Peter stated simply, twirling his ballpoint pen distractedly between his fingers and staring down at the editorials with his usual impassive half-smile. Derek, who had only just stepped foot into the office with their morning coffees, didn’t tamp down the annoyed groan. Jeremy was going to be their main photo-shoot spread in the next edition, seeing as he always sold more copies, but the man was progressively becoming more of a diva than a part-time magazine model. This would be the third time he piked out on a shoot so close to the deadline.

“We can always change the line-up, though,” Derek offered, slumping into the office chair opposite Peter’s desk and frowning into his coffee. “Nothing’s going to print for another fortnight. We can make the spread a little smaller, bulk up the issue with some of those emergency articles we have lying around somewhere.”

“You think that’ll work?” the older man quirked an eyebrow, leaning back into his office chair. The air in the office was a little stale, probably because the windows were still closed from the prior evening, and Derek could already feel his head starting to throb from irritation and stress. He clenched his jaw stubbornly behind the plastic lid of his cup, wondering why he always got bad news first things on a Thursday. He hated Thursdays with a passion.

“Jeremy sells copies because he does sex,” Derek griped back, willing the thudding in his brain to die down. “He knows he can work the camera, and that the magazines sell because of it. But he’s also becoming a real pain in the ass to work with.” He recalled how, on more than one occasion, Jeremy had stomped out in a tiff halfway through a shoot, refusing any more photos until his requirements had been met. These days, they were getting more and more difficult to do, especially on their meagre budget. “If it were up to me,” he muttered, “I’d be more than happy to never see his face again.”

“Do you have anybody in mind for the spread?” Peter asked, shuffling through articles spread out on his desk. The younger man drained the rest of his coffee and shook his head, rubbing at his temples with his fingertips.

“Carl and Ben are both on holiday, and Michael’s arm is still in a cast.” He glanced around the spacious office, eyes wandering from the paintings on the off-white walls to the bushy Japanese peace lily flowering in the pot in the corner. It must have been thriving to spite him, because he hated that plant with a vengeance. Peter knew it too, and it wouldn’t have surprised him in the slightest if he were to find out that his uncle is fertilizing it and taking extra care with it just to annoy him. “I was thinking about doing something different anyway. I don’t want us to turn into some kind of over-the-top skin mag, and knowing Jeremy, he’d probably try to get his rocks off in front of the camera to gain more notoriety. I’ll see who else we haven’t shot with in a while and get something set up soon.”

“I’m sure you’ll sort something out,” Peter smiled again, though it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “You always do.”

 

. o O o .

 

Their magazine,  _‘NECKZ ‘n THROATS’_ , has been in publication for almost fifty years. Derek’s great uncle, Albert Hale, founded it fresh out of university with a journalism degree under his belt as a werewolf-only digest. At the time, it had been a pretty ballsy thing to do – werewolves were considered by society back then as still something of an enigma. Sure, they were treated the same as regular humans (because, for the most parts, they lived as and amongst them) but, like sex and divorce, it wasn’t talked about much. It was regarded as a private, very nearly taboo subject to broach. In a manner of speaking, Albert Hale had been a pioneer in the field, comparable to Hugh Hefner or Larry Flynt, and though Derek sometimes cringes at the comparisons, he can’t deny that the similarities are there.

In the beginning, the magazine had been pretty down-market – printed on cheap, gritty paper with even cheaper ink and black and white photographs, sold at only a few gas stations and newsagencies, wrapped in brown paper like the other smut magazines. It dealt with a variety of lupine issues, ranging from pack integration into regular society all the way to the more mundane matters, with a page on the back cover dedicated to reader’s questions. Five years after its inception, and the monthly magazine branched out into two separate categories. To this day, its sister-magazine,  _‘Décolletage’_ , sold three times in volume, with its glossy front covers featuring windswept werewolf girls in bikinis and barely-there clothes, sitting right alongside ‘Hustler’ and ‘Playboy’ in the newsstands.  _‘NECKZ ‘n THROATS’_  would always appeal to a smaller crowd, since the focus of it was men – in particular, men of different persuasions, classified by scientists at the time as ‘congenital inverts’.

Nevertheless, it was a ground-breaking editorial, in its own way. Dozens more magazines began life and caught on as werewolf-only periodicals, but  _‘NECKZ ‘n THROATS’_  would always be the first, the original. As the times changed, so did acceptance and integration of werewolves in human society, until these days it wasn’tt unheard of for the populations in towns to be divided almost half-half in its werewolf/human ratio. Thanks to Albert Hale, and his passion for pushing boundaries, the stories were always new and current with the times. It became the first mainstream journal that included material for both alphas and betas in the same publication, and, riding the crest of the 70’s movements, include photos of humans. To this day, it’s still technically banned in four states.

After he died, Albert’s ownership of the magazine transferred to his nephew, Peter Hale, who seemed to be the only one interested in continuing the line of journalism in the family. ‘Décolletage’ had its stocks sold, so while still bringing in some revenue, it was owned in name only – the magazine was technically written and printed on the other side of the country. Peter kept _‘NECKZ ‘n THROATS’_  as a side-project for a while, until a terrible family tragedy struck, and almost his entire family was wiped out in a home fire caused by faulty wiring. Survived only by his niece and nephew, he turned to the magazine as a distraction, becoming the main writer and editor of the publication. His niece, Laura, moved to New York, away from the tragedy and loss. His nephew, Derek, finished school and began helping at the office, working his way up from filing and fetching the office workers’ coffees to actually being useful. After a few years, he became the official photographer for  _‘NECKZ ‘n THROATS’_. Peter was glad for his passion his work, even if it was only to stay close to what little family he had left. Sales were better than ever for a while, with the entire team (a total of twenty strong staff members) organised and churning out one issue better than the next.

Only things hadn’t been going so well lately. A financial slipup a few years prior, a scandal with one of the editorial writers, and the upswing and limitless access of internet porn sites to blame. In a bold move orchestrated by Peter, the magazine started focusing on a shift in its demographic. Not only did it now cater to alphas and betas, but also those who don’t fit in the strict human/werewolf binary that much of society likes to enforce all too enthusiastically.

It’s been two days, and Derek still hasn’t found a model to replace Jeremy for the magazine spread. He’s made the rounds to the rest of the staff, and their articles seem to all be in order, and on time. The only person letting the issue down is the photographer, that is to say, himself. Every issue of  _‘NECKZ ‘n THROATS’_ , ever since the very first issue printed back in great uncle Albert’s day, has had a feature photo spread of a model – he couldn’t face Peter without presenting him with a proper shoot. Peter would probably drive the end of his fancy ballpoint through Derek’s jugular as punishment – served with one of his usual, passive-aggressive smiles as a side dish.

Running a hand exasperatedly over the stubble on his face, Derek leaned his elbows on the surface of his desk, cluttered with papers, and buried his face into his wide hands. He’d gone through his archives – he didn’t even have a backup complete shoot he could pass off as a make-do solution. He’d gone through every contact in his work phone for inspiration, even going so far as to call the models from the past ten issues. Somehow, the fates were against him – every single one of them was unavailable for a session, be it from illness, other commitments or simply because they didn’t want to be in that line of work anymore.

Derek grunted in frustration, glaring at the broken pencils littering his desk that he never bothered to sharpen (which, in turn, multiplied faster than rabbits and never failed to aggravate him when he was in dire need of one that would actually write). Yes,  _‘NECKZ ‘n THROATS’_  was a more risqué magazine than usual – their last issue had featured an extensive article on alpha/beta sexual compatibility. Regardless, Derek was fiercely protective of it, of his uncle, of their entire team – and most of all, of his work. He wasn’t the best photographer in the business, but he was pretty damn good, and he took pride in each and every photograph that went into the glossy pages. Jeremy might have sold more editions on sex-factor alone, but by far he’d been Derek’s least favourite model to work with. He preferred to catch something different with his lens, unique and unobtrusive, finding perfection and exceptionality in the commonplace. Jeremy had a pretty face and a six-pack, but Derek found his over-the-top, obvious sexuality almost stomach-turning.

Tapping the eraser-end of a broken pencil on the stack of papers, he sighed through his nose and stared out the window, watching the shadows elongate in the late afternoon sunlight. Time was running out on him. He needed to do a shoot, process and edit the photos, and have them ready for print in eleven days, and he still had no model. After exhausting all other possible avenues, Derek finally pulled his cell phone out from beneath the mess of papers on his desk, scrolling through his contact list until he found the name he was looking for. He hoped they’d pick up on a Friday afternoon, right on the heels of closing time – why was he here again, so late on the tail end of the week? Oh yeah, because his models were all either divas or out to ruin his life. Desperate times called for desperate measures, and he was most certainly going to regret this in the near future, but it was a necessary evil. The phone connected on the third ring, a clipped, business-cheerful voice on the other end answering.

“Hello, Lydia? It’s Derek. Yes, Derek Hale, from  _‘NECKZ ‘n THROATS’_  magazine. Listen – I need a favour.”

 

. o O o .

 

“I’m not really sure about this,” Stiles mumbled, bouncing his knee up and down without really noticing, making soft  _swish swish swish_  sounds as the denim of his jeans rustled. Lydia Martin, his long-time friend (and sometimes employer at  _Martin’s_ , a modelling agency that she operated single-handedly and doubled as an employment agency when other businesses were in need of a model), took another sip of her chai latte and rolled her eyes heavenwards, as if asking whichever deity was listening for strength. Impatiently, she threw her arm over the café table, slapping her hand on Stiles’ knee with a little more force than necessary, halting that god-awful rustling sound.

“Never mind that I’m doing you a huge, huge,  _huge_  favour here, Stiles,” she countered, putting her glass down on the table daintily, her lips pursed in her usual ‘I’m right, so you’d better listen to me or there’ll be trouble’ face. “You need something to bring in extra income, and this’d be perfect for someone with your…” She stalled for half a moment, then smiled dazzlingly, “… qualifications.”

“You mean lack of qualifications,” Stiles muttered back darkly, now drumming his fingers on his knee in his usual, jittery manner. “Also known as ‘complete lack of useful skills’, as your jackass boyfriend keeps reminding me.” It wasn’t his fault that he got nervous easily, especially when it came to job interviews. Stiles Stilinski had a very severe case of ‘Foot-In-Mouth’ disease, where he’d blurt out something completely inappropriate, horrifically timed, or downright unintelligible. And sometimes, if he was having a very unlucky day, all of those things would happen at once. Not exactly the best face to show a prospective employer.

“Don’t mind Jackson,” the redhead flapped her hand dismissively, “Look, this is a great opportunity. You’ve done modelling work a couple of times before already. It’s easy money – just sit there and get your photos snapped. It’s a cash-in-hand job too, so there’s no messing about with paperwork and you get your pay straight away.” She sipped her coffee and soldiered on. “It beats dropping platefuls of spaghetti on customers’ laps, anyway.”

“Okay, for your information, that was only once,” Stiles shot back guiltily (he didn’t elaborate to say that it was all that it had taken that first night to get him kicked out of the job), “And the only modelling job I really did was for that one time when they were shooting for men’s watches. I didn’t even have to do anything; they only took photos of my wrists!”

“Which is why the pay will be higher this time around.”

“I just – look, Lyds, I don’t – this is a completely different thing, okay?” he countered, sitting up straighter in the chair and jabbing a finger on the table. Lydia raised an eyebrow at him, and only belatedly he realised how loud his protestations must have been. Meekly, he hunkered down a little lower in the wicker seat, ignoring the curious looks from the other tables around them. “It’s – it’s weird, okay? It’s a – a…  _gay werewolf magazine_.” His voice dropped to a hissed whisper, eyes widened almost comically. “I can’t get my pants off for a shoot like that, even if the money is – wait, how much did they offer?”

Lydia jotted the figure down on her napkin and slid it across the laminate surface of the table. She felt an accomplished mixture of victory and disgust when Stiles picked up the napkin and choked on his iced chocolate, dribbling it down his chin. She punctuated the action with an unimpressed ‘Ew’, and then went in for the kill.

“You don’t even have to take your clothes off, Stiles,” she nodded sagely, throwing the mess of flailing arms a handful of napkins. “It’s more of an arty shoot than anything. I know the guys who run the magazine, and the photographer – it’s totally kosher. A couple of hours’ work, no nudity, and you get cash in hand. What more could you want from a job?” And that was the final nail in the coffin. Suppressing a triumphant smile, she leaned back in her chair and watched as the gears in her friend’s head whirred dizzyingly, weighing the pros and cons of the situation.

She looked away for a moment, and almost felt a little bad for bringing the subject up (but then again, she was Lydia Freaking Martin, and she’d do whatever it takes to make sure things went her way). “You know how expensive those college books are,” her voice was sweet and very nearly kind, patting the back of Stiles’ hand as though she actually gave a shit, “and usually final years have the most expensive ones. You don’t want to burden your dad with the responsibility of forking out more cash, do you?” The withering look Stiles gave her might have almost worked, if it wasn’t for the fact that, moments later, the scowl dropped into a frown of resignation. She wasn’t at all surprised when he scrunched the soggy napkins into a ball with a frustrated exhale.

“So what time is this shoot then?” he sighed, his knee bouncing again.

Lydia tried not to look too smug. She failed spectacularly.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow! Okay, I didn't think I'd get so much support from people on this story so far. It's really motivated me to write faster than usual, ahaha~ Thank you so much to everybody who's commented and left kudos - you guys are the best!
> 
> I know it's still a little slow in the buildup, but I promise things will start to get interesting after this chapter. I just like to have a solid foundation to build my stories upon!
> 
> Please excuse me if I use any photography terminology wrong here. In the words of the great Detective Inspector Lestrade, 'Not My Division'.
> 
> [Tumblr of mine](http://yijitumbles.tumblr.com/) is here~!

Clutching the scrap of paper between his fingers, Stiles sat morosely in the driver’s bench seat of his Jeep, sitting idly in the magazine’s parking lot. Nothing seemed to be iffy about the situation – he’d expected the photo shoot to be in the dead of night, the location somewhere seedy like an alleyway or an empty strip club. But he’d checked the address three times, and the building where the publication was housed seemed completely normal. The low, single storey off-white building even appeared a little on the boring side, to be honest, the front doors fringed by ferns and the small parking lot open and completely murderer-free. 

“Okay, so. A completely normal, nondescript, totally not-shady place,” Stiles muttered, fidgeting and trying to smooth out the address that he’d folded and crumpled almost beyond repair. There was nothing for it, he guessed, relinquishing his miserable attempt to turn the paper into anything tidier than mulch, and threw it into the bin compartment with a sigh. He was ten minutes early for the shoot, but it’d probably be better etiquette to wait in the lobby (or whatever they had) instead of sitting in his car like a total creeper. Stiles swallowed thickly, steeled his resolve (or what few grains of resolve he had left) and slid out of the Jeep, shouldering his backpack and locking the door. He could totally do this, he reasoned in his head, amping himself up. He was a Stilinski. He had Stilinski charm oozing from his very pores. Now all he had to do was convince the guys inside the building that he was the man for the job.

The receptionist inside the building was a ridiculously good-looking blonde bombshell (to be honest, Stiles hadn't met a werewolf who _hadn't_ looked like sex on legs), who seemed to be more interested in varnishing her scarlet talons than doing any sort of paperwork. When Stiles approached the high-walled desk, she took a few torturously long moments to acknowledge his presence in any way, which, effectively, made Stiles feel several inches smaller as the time dragged on. When she finally did meet his eyes, the grin that pulled at her ruby lips made him feel less reassured and more like a very small, very defenceless rabbit spotted by a very large, very carnivorous thing. Goddammit.

“I’m, uh, Stiles. Stilinski. Stiles Stilinski,” he offered, only managing to sound a little bit like an idiot.

“’Morning Stiles Stilinski Stiles Stilinski,” she replied idly, snapping her gum with a grin that was entirely too predatory to feel safe. Great. Not only did Stiles have to be cursed with feeling terrified and awkward in front of genetically-blessed people, but he had to deal with smart-alecky receptionist. He squared his shoulders a little under the strap of his backpack and soldiered on.

“Just, uh, Stiles is fine. I had an appointment this afternoon for a shoot with the magazine?”

“Erica, for Christ’s sake, stop terrifying everybody who walks through the doors.” A young man with curly hair walked past, shuffling some papers in his hands and not looking at the receptionist. The blonde just rolled her eyes back, but somehow Stiles could feel this was the playful banter between two friends, and not interoffice bickering. Not his problem at the moment, though. “If you’re doing a shoot,” the guy added, tucking a pencil behind his ear, “the studio’s just through the doors down the hall, last one on the left. Oh, what the hell, I’m headed that way myself to the copy room, I’ll walk you there.”

“We pride ourselves on our escort services, don’t we Isaac?” the receptionist – Erica – winked, and Stiles almost tripped over his own feet. Isaac good-naturedly flipped her off and strode unhurriedly down the corridor, Stiles in tow. “Isaac Lahey, I write for the magazine,” he offered his hand, and Stiles shook it unthinkingly, at ease with the friendliness of him. “Don’t worry about Erica, she’s just in a snappy mood this week because the coffee machine’s busted and Peter – Peter Hale, our boss – hasn’t been able to get a guy out to fix it. And she’s too lazy to just go to Starbucks next door and grab a cup.”

“She seems proactive enough in keeping her nails manicured,” Stiles replied, and then immediately slapped his hand over his mouth. And there it was, the famous Stilinski Charm, except where his dad made himself seem approachable, clever and charming, Stiles just managed to make people loathe him as soon as he opened his mouth. Well, ‘loathe’ was maybe an exaggeration, but he could just as easily replace the word with ‘severely dislike’ or ‘believe he was mentally challenged’. Isaac, however, barked out a laugh at that, and clapped him on the shoulder good-naturedly.

“You’re sharp – I like that. If you go through there,” he jerked his chin at the doors opposite the copy room, “And down the corridor, first door on your right is the studio. You can’t miss it, it’s got a sign bigger than Erica’s shoe collection.” He chortled good-naturedly, and Stiles couldn’t help the grin that tugged at his own lips. “Ask for Derek Hale if he’s not in there – he’s the magazine’s fashion photographer, and part of the Hale family. Good luck with the shoot, and it was nice to meet you.”

“You too – see you around!” Stiles waved a little and made his way through the office, finding the studio easily enough – the double doors had the word emblazoned over the front, essentially making it idiot-proof. He rapped the whitewashed wood a couple of times with his knuckles, before slipping inside. Compared to the smaller jewellery gig he’d done before, this studio was much larger, what he’d always imagined a proper magazine photographer to have. The large room was primarily white, scattered with neatly-placed lights and flashes on tripods, interrupting the colour scheme with black splashes. Umbrellas and reflectors were stacked neatly to one side, and an infinity wall was set up against one of the walls. One of the other walls had a bar scene set up, the photo-realistic backdrop complete with a bar counter, stools and prop bottles stacked against the shelves. In the far corner, next to a pile of assorted chairs and divans, there was a dressing room, walled off from the main studio but still easily accessible. Roomier than expected and doubling as a storage room, one wall was stacked high with boxes of props, costumes and clothing items, the plastic storage containers clearly labelled in a neat hand. Stiles had to say that he was thoroughly impressed – whoever ran this place seemed to be neat to the point of being painstakingly meticulous, and in all probability more organised than Stiles could ever even hope to be.

“Can I help you?”

He hadn't noticed anybody else in the room, and the sudden voice made him jump in surprise and nearly have a coronary infarction. He whirled around, and – oh, _hello there_ – was met with the sight of a ridiculously good-looking man, sitting on the edge of a desk and drinking from a takeaway coffee cup, who was currently regarding him with a look of abject indifference. As if awkward people seemed to tumble into the building every day, and that was the norm. Stiles swallowed the giant brick that seemed to have lodged itself in his throat, shoving his hands in his pockets as he stepped forward, closer to the man who had obviously just stepped off an Abercrombie and Fitch set. Just his luck – they’d actually found a replacement model for the shoot and hadn't bothered to contact him. Well, that was a waste of an afternoon.

“I’m, uh, looking for a Mister Hale. I’m Stiles Stilinski, here for the shoot. But, I mean, if you’re here, I guess I’ll just tell him thanks, and be on my way home.”

The other man (seriously, though, what was with that jawline? You could cut diamonds on that) tilted his head a fraction, his eyebrows knitting together in confusion as he lowered the cup onto the desk.

“I don’t think I quite follow you there,” he spoke, words a little slower than normal. “I’m Derek Hale – I’m the photographer for the magazine.”

“Oh. Ohhh.” Stiles’ mouth hung open, doing a fairly good impersonation of a stunned mullet. Something definitely wasn’t right here. It felt like the beginning of a badly-written porno, except usually both actors were good-looking, not one of them an Adonis and the other an awkward mess of limbs and moles. Jesus, if the guy needed a model so badly for the shoot, taking selfies in the bathroom mirror would have more than sufficed for him.

“Is something wrong?” Derek Hale asked, standing off the desk and _holy moley_ there had to be some sort of law against wearing a Henley if your musculature was that defined. The clipboard he had been examining followed suit of the cup of coffee, placed slowly on the table as if a sudden movement on his part would set Stiles off into a flailing mess.

“No! No, not at all!” Stiles waved his hands frantically, as if the more rotations he could muster, the less awkward he would feel. It didn’t seem to be working much. “I just wasn’t expecting you to be -” The first phrase that came to mind was _‘eye-explodingly hot’_ , or even something a little milder like _‘as fucking climbable as a tree’_. What actually came out of his mouth, however, was “- not old.”

Ah, yes, the Stilinski charm knew no bounds.

 

. o O o .

 

Derek hadn’t really known what to expect when the new model from  _Martin’s_  was scheduled for the shoot that afternoon. Somehow, he’d had in his mind the cookie-cutter type of male model, a well-built, blond human with the stereotypical features that they considered handsome. The young man that walked through the doors, though, was so completely left-field that it threw him for a loop. He hadn’t been noticed yet – not just because he was sitting in the shadows with his morning coffee. The kid was taking the sight of the studio in, and it was more than obvious to Derek that this guy was a rookie model.

"Were you expecting someone else?" he asked, already feeling his hackles rise. He got this a lot in his line of work - obviously, youth was equal to inexperience in the eyes of many.

"No, I didn't- I meant-," the other seemed to physically stumble over his words, windmilling his hand in the air as if he could coax eloquence forth instead of stuttered utterances. "I thought you might have been a model or something."

Derek had heard that line before, numerous times. It aggravated him because, as far as cheesy pick-up lines went, this one was used to death. But it was different this time around - the young man (Stiles Stilinski, he remembered from the call-sheet for the day) didn't seem to be coming on to him. If anything, he seemed genuine in his mistake, even a little contrite about it. It was almost cute, and then Derek immediately struck that thought from his mind.

"I'll be shooting you today, nice to meet you," he offered the customary pleasantry, extending his hand for a handshake. Stiles shook back, a "Likewise," offered through a lopsided grin, and Derek took a moment to really take in the new model. He was a little on the lanky side, but his body seemed well-proportioned and his hands and arms were toned. Despite the sideways smile, his face had good symmetry and his eyes were honeyed-brown and long-lashed, with a smattering of beauty marks across his pale skin. He wasn't conventionally beautiful, but definitely attractive, and to Derek’s trained eye, definitely an interesting subject to shoot.

“We’re just going to be shooting something casual today,” he went on to say, taking his hand back and crossing both arms over his chest. “Nothing fancy, just some portrait shots with slightly different lighting than usual. Have you done any modelling work before this?”

“Not particularly,” the other shrugged, running a hand through the short buzz-cut of his hair like a nervous tic. “I mean, I did a watch shoot a little while back, and before that I modelled some shoes for a store catalogue, but nothing with my face before.” Derek nodded in response, already knowing he was new, but at least he’d been in some semblance of a photography shoot environment before, and could probably take direction. He raked his eyes down Stiles’ form, taking in his fashion choices – jeans, Chuck Taylor Converses, layered shirts that had seen better days, or maybe just worn thin because that’s what boys did, wear their favourite things to death. Even without asking, he could tell this guy was a student. But, he nodded to himself as Stiles seemed to squirm a little on the spot under the scrutiny, the outfit had to go.

“Shirts come off,” he said simply, turning on his heel and walking purposefully towards wardrobe, paying no heed to the surprised squawk behind him. The casual look could work, he thought as he sorted through the hangers, pulling out a classic-cut Diesel tee and a middle-zip navy blue GAP hoodie with complementing-colour hood without the logo. Definitely going for casual, but at least the brands made cleaner-cut lines, and these would definitely fit him better than what he was wearing at the moment. “Put these on,” he continued, handing the hangers over to Stiles as he moved towards his equipment, set up and ready to go in front of the fake bar. He hadn't known exactly what the model would be like, but he’d figured that you couldn’t go wrong with a basic bar scene, and they hadn't had a chance to use this new backdrop yet since Peter bought a bunch of them from an old studio shutting down in town. He was double-checking his white-balance setting when Stiles ambled over, looking only mildly confused but (to Derek’s opinion, anyway) much better in clothes that actually fit him properly.

“Take a seat,” Derek jerked his chin towards one of the stools, “I still need to fix the lights, take me another couple of minutes.”

He fiddled with the umbrellas, turned off the main studio lights and set the ‘bar’ lights on, adjusting brightness here and there until the multiple light-sources cast a soft, darker atmosphere on the set, as though it were mid-afternoon verging on evening in a real bar, instead of early afternoon in a studio. The entire time, Stiles sat on the stool on the end of the L-bend of the bar, quiet save for the soft swishing noise of his pant leg as he bounced his knee up and down, shifting and jiggling on the stool as if he couldn’t possibly bear to keep still for longer than a minute. Internally, Derek groaned, wondering if he would even be able to get any proper shots if this guy was a restless fidgeter.

“Just taking some trial shots to test the lighting,” he said, hefting his heavy Canon into his hands as if it were nothing at all and adjusting the focus manually on the lens. He took a couple of snaps, making small adjustments here and there to the settings. Stiles was still bouncing his leg up and down and shuffling with nervous energy, but hopefully he’d loosen up during the shoot. “Alright,” he adjusted the strap of the camera around his neck and walked to the bar, standing almost to the edge of the prop bar, a few feet away from Stiles. “Turn around and lean your elbows on the bench top, keep it casual. Don’t look here, focus on the bottles to my right.” He kept his eyes focused on the young man through his viewfinder, watching the way the model obeyed him intently. If anything else, Stiles had a great face for lighting – the clean cut angles on his cheekbones and jaw caught the light exceptionally well, and cast artistic planes of shadow on him. He snapped a photo, and frowned – Stiles was still far too tense.

“You have the look of a student,” he said casually, hating making small talk but finding that it usually loosened edgy models up if they had familiar ground to stand on. “What are you studying?”

“Oh –” Stiles looked perplexed for a moment, and then his shoulders visibly relaxed. “I’m just at the local college doing History of Myth and Folklore, final year – they have one of the best departments in the country for it, it’s really cool.”

Obviously Stiles was a talker – the easy way words seemed to come to him and made his entire body relax was proof of it. Derek took a few photos as he spoke, interested that Stiles gesticulated animatedly when he talked. Some of the photos came out blurry, but he got one or two that seemed okay. Over the course of the next hour and a half, he got Stiles to move around to various positions at the bar, playing with different poses and angles. Derek was glad that, despite Stiles being an amateur, he took direction well, never failing to tilt an arm outwards just so, or angle his head a little more to the right when told. He kept up the small talk, if only to keep his model relaxed, but found himself asking less and just being silent as Stiles talked his head off about his course, his university life, this one professor that seemed to be the spawn of Satan (which earned a genuine smirk from him).

“So,” he asked conversationally as Stiles sat on the bar stool facing him, elbow propped back on the counter, glass of whiskey (iced tea, really) beside him. “Do you have a girlfriend?” He didn’t know what possessed him to ask that question, not after all the completely-neutral small talk they’d just had about Stiles’ father’s heart condition and the calorie-reduced meals he made that drove his dad crazy.

“Oh, there was this one girl I had a massive crush on my entire school life – she was the most perfect thing ever, beautiful, smart as a whip, in the popular clique. Basically she was so utterly and totally out of my league, she was in a completely different stratosphere. She essentially told me it’d never happen, not in a million years, but now we’re pretty close friends, so that’s cool.”

“And what about now?” he asked, the sharp _click_ of the camera punctuating his question. Stiles rubbed the back of his neck and glanced downwards, a shy grin pulling at his mouth.

“Well, there’s this one guy in my class… pretty sure it’s just one-sided on my part, but he’s pretty great,” he murmured, his cheeks tingeing ever so slightly pink, even as he stilled long enough for Derek to take another photo. The moment he captured seemed so private, so profoundly intimate, that he couldn’t help but pause, hesitate a moment with his camera. Okay, he was officially feeling a little on the awkward side now, even if Stiles didn’t seem to notice anything was amiss.

“Alright, um, just hook your fingers into the collar of your hoodie and pull on it just a bit. Good – keep your eye on the camera,” he instructed, snapping as Stiles did so, exposing about an inch of his collarbone on the right. It wasn’t the first photo of the set where Stiles’ focus had been on the camera, but the subject they’d just brought up seemed to have an effect, because Stiles’ face was relaxed, a hint of a smile playing about his lips and eyes half-closed. It was a great shot – probably one of the best from the shoot. “Okay. Now keep your eyes on the camera, but tilt your chin up just a bit.”

Stiles did so, and Derek found himself swallowing hard. He didn’t know if Stiles knew he was putting on a pretty provocative face, but _Jesus_. The smooth column of his throat was angled just so, catching the light on the tendon in such a way that the sternocleidomastoid muscles were lit perfectly. Stiles had a great neck, and Derek found himself unable to stop the camera clicking madly, capturing the pale expanse of flesh. It was almost laughable, how barely a hand-span of skin seemed to make all the difference.

“Great,” he said quickly, switching off and lowering the camera as though it were molten, “I think we’re done for today.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dedicated to my darling Toby in hopes that her flu will GTFO, and Deej for being my ear to complain in when I stumbled over a small writer's block.
> 
> Holy heck, you guys, I am still totally humbled from all the attention and wonderful comments I've been getting on this. It's really inspiring me to try and write the best that I can for you all! <3
> 
> [My Tumblr account](http://yijitumbles.tumblr.com/) is here, in case you want to lob things at me.

Okay, so. To say that Stiles hadn't enjoyed the photo-shoot on Monday (his half-day off) by Dreamy McHotness would be the worst type of lie ever. He would be a lying liar if he said so. His limited experience with modelling had been mind-numbingly boring at best, stabbingly monotonous at worst. But the shoot with Derek Hale had been completely different. There had been talking – quite a lot of it, actually, almost all of it on his part – and a strange, but relaxed atmosphere. Stiles knew he had the propensity to let his mouth move faster than his brain at times, but the photographer hadn't seemed to mind. More than once, he’d even smiled, or added a few words of his own to the conversation between photos.

The job had been cash-in-hand. After the shoot had finished, Derek had handed him a sealed envelope with the notes, and that had been the end of it. Not bad, he’d thought, sitting in his Jeep an hour later with a hot chocolate balanced on the dashboard, thumbing through the notes. With this, he could buy one of the textbooks for his class instead of having to borrow the tattered ones from the library with half the pages torn out and scribbled over. The thick one that he’d been eyeing off for ages too, with coloured illustrations and indexed Harvard-style citations. He very much doubted that he’d have been able to afford it without working ridiculously long hours in menial labour (he suppressed a shudder remembering his brief stint in hospitality), and made a mental note to buy Lydia a coffee as thanks for the opportunity. Never mind that she made unfair amounts of money more than he did (university student aside, of course); it was a gesture of thanks, after all.

The very first thing he’d done after class had ended on Tuesday was to waltz confidently into the practically deserted campus bookstore, whistling _‘Hey Big Spender’_ under his breath, though it was less Shirley Bassey and more Homer Simpson as he shuffled (badly) between bookshelves. _“Hey Big Spender, dig this blender,”_ he hummed softly between his teeth, pulling down a copy of _‘Mythical Gods and Creatures – An Illustrated Compendium’_. The thick volume was heavy in his hands, and he sighed reverently at the smell of new paper, leafing through crisp, unbent pages and running fingertips appreciatively over a brilliant, glossy illustration of Quetzalcoatl inside. It was, undoubtedly, a thing of fucking beauty, and it would very soon belong to him (as soon as he could stop pawing at it long enough to get it to the counter and hand over the money).

“Wow, you’re pretty dedicated to be buying the textbook for class,” came a voice right behind him, and Stiles mentally patted himself in the back for only jumping a handful of feet. He spun on the spot, almost tipping over in his haste, and was met by the brilliant smile of Danny, his classmate and currently overwhelming crush.

“Oh my god, you scared the living jimmies out of me,” Stiles stuttered, fumbling the tome in his hands. Danny, as always, looked cheerful and gorgeous, probably why half the class (and undoubtedly half the college) crushed on him. It was only by extreme chance that they even shared a class together, purely because Danny needed the credits for a particular elective to finish his degree, and god knows why he picked that one out of all the others he could have chosen. But they’d been seated beside each other, and had shared an assignment together. While they weren’t exactly best friends, they shared the occasional coffee and chat during breaks. Stiles didn’t know when his infatuation had begun, but he’d desperately been trying to wean himself off the feeling. After all, their semester was already half over, and they’d probably never cross paths again with such different degrees. “Aren’t you going to buy the textbook?” he asked, awkwardly finding his voice and decidedly not looking at how well that button-up shirt was fitting him. Danny took the book from his fingers and flipped through it idly, his fingers gentle with the paper (another thing Stiles liked about him – the man could hold a book how it needed to be held, lovingly and carefully like a teeny tiny puppy).

“I don’t really plan on wasting money on something I’ll probably never pick up again, like my trig texts. Don’t get me wrong, class is interesting, but I’ll just stick to the library copies and previous classmates’ witty commentaries in the margins.” He glanced up from under his lashes and smiled benevolently, and Stiles swore his chest tried to squeeze and tie itself into a particularly chest-like pretzel. “You’re different, though, Stiles. You really love this kind of stuff, and you’d read these books until they were threadbare. You’re probably the most dedicated student in the course, so forking out the cash for this would be an investment.”

“I really, nah, no, seriously, what, man?” Stiles scoffed and asked simultaneously, starting a half-dozen sentences and finishing none of them past the first couple of syllables. Danny laughed, a low, pleasant chuckle that shot right through Stiles’ chest and knocked him for six, and handed the heavy book back to him.

“I’ll catch you in class, okay?” he waved, still smiling as he turned and left. Stiles only felt a little bit like an idiot when he managed to wave back, almost a full minute after the electronic doors to the bookshop had closed after the guy.

 

. o O o .

 

The second thing Stiles had done (straight after buying the book) had been to check Derek Hale out.

Not in the _I’m-totally-checking-you-out_ sort of way, with the eyelash fluttering and kissy-faces happening, no, that would be really creepy.

Alongside the notes in the envelope, a crisp business-card had been included with Derek’s details – more specifically, his name, occupation, and personal portfolio website. It was minimalistic to the point of being unassuming – the only decoration on the card being a border. He wasn’t being weird about it. After all, he mused as he typed the URL into his browser, slumped awkwardly into his home computer chair, he’d just modelled for him. Of course he’s bound to be a little curious at the guy’s results.

What he found was… surprising. For all of Derek’s ‘tough-guy’ look (and really, his five o’clock shadow was dangerously close to a level that made small children cry), his photography was almost delicate. The portfolio website was minimalistic and clean, simple Flash coding and a black-and-white colour scheme to match the card. A lot of the photographs were in black-and-white and sharp contrast, but the ones in colour were muted and soft, as if viewed through foggy lenses. A couple of them stood out with bright pops of colour, like beacons in the snow. The subject matters were all different – pets, portraits, nature, buildings, foods. It was, obviously, a portfolio, showing exactly what he could do.

He was a good photographer. Great, even. Stiles was impressed with how well Derek seems to portray his subjects, how to change the focus and pick up specific details. He wasn’t a photography connoisseur, but even to his amateur, untrained eye, he could tell that it is something that Derek liked to do, something that he could put his entire focus onto. It wasn’t just a job – it was a passion. It definitely made him feel a lot better than he did before he got to the magazine studio, knowing that, whatever happens, the photos of him might come out somewhat respectable-looking. He’d always been highly unphotogenic in his school photos, goofy grin and awkward head-tilts and all. Maybe Derek had been able to coax a usable photo out of their shoot time.

He decided to go out and buy candy, because hey, he planned to spend the evening relaxing and playing Xbox instead of studying (he’s allowing himself one night of absolute slothfulness a week so he doesn’t fry his brains), and he had run out of sugar. It only made sense to him that his evening would not be complete without some sort of sugary accompaniment, but somehow he found himself bypassing the regular store in town. It wasn’t like his dad would complain, after all, he was on night-shift, and therefore not home. It’s a blessing, too, because if Stiles came home with a large bag of candy slung under his arm, his father would pitch a fit, less to do with Stiles’ dietary supplementation and more with indignant rage at being denied anything of the sort in his own diet. Stiles was a good son, but when it came to his father’s health, his will was of iron and tofu.

Stiles kept driving. He wasn’t exactly sure why himself. He drove a half hour out of town to a small gas station where nobody recognised him as the Sheriff’s kid. He bought a jumbo bag of M&Ms and a Snickers bar, and surreptitiously sneaked a copy of _‘NECKZ ‘n THROATS’_ in with his purchases – just on a whim, he told himself, since he saw it on the shelf. Peeking out dog-eared behind a stack of other magazines on the rack. In the very back of the store. Behind an empty Twisters stand.

Thankfully, the dude at the register seemed more interested in watching the game on the small portable television behind the counter than giving him weird looks, because _holy shit Stiles was buying a gay werewolf magazine_. He flung the plastic bag onto the seat of his Jeep and drove home with his nerves bouncing all over the place. Okay, it wasn’t as if he’d never bought a skin mag before, and to be honest he assumed that the mortifying feeling when his dad had found his stash was a rite of passage between all sons and fathers at a certain age. But this was different because _holy shit. Werewolves. Gay._ Possibly not the time to be having a minor freak-out while he was _behind the wheel of a moving vehicle_.

Fortunately the roads were blessedly free from judging people, and he got home in one piece. He shoved the magazine under his mattress and promptly ignored it, focusing his entire energy on decimating both the undead on his screen and a good portion of his chocolate snacks right after a so-healthy dinner of Hot Pockets. He spendt a good few hours at this, got his books in order for the next day of class and showered, slipping into flannel pants and a t-shirt ready for bed. But despite the lights being off, the lateness of the night and the quiet of the house, Stiles’ head was buzzing with activity. Lying in bed, he shifted and turned for what felt like hours (but, according to his bedside clock, was only twenty minutes) before he restlessly pulled the covers off and switched on his bedside lamp. Shoving a hand between the mattress and the base, he pulled out the magazine and decided to have a good look at it once and for all.

It was an old copy of the magazine, dated three months earlier. Not a surprise, given the state of the gas station and the fact that his Snickers bar had turned white around the edges (he’d eaten it anyway). Stiles’ ears felt hot as he read the subtitle emblazoned in red beneath the header _‘THE RED HOT SEX ISSUE!’_ , noticed the sealed section in the back of the monthly. Of course he’d have had to buy that particular issue by chance. No, he decided firmly, opening the magazine to the very first page and reading the index. He definitely wasn’t going to open that particular can of worms tonight. He’d wait until a non-school night to worry about a gay-werewolf-existential-crisis, thank you very much. Skimming the editor’s note, he read what articles were in the issue, recognising Isaac’s name on a piece that actually sounds interesting and Derek’s on the photo spread.

He spent an hour reading the magazine. For what it was, it was surprisingly interesting. He skipped the sex-related editorials on special for the issue ( _‘Knotting – Is your Mate Really Ready?’_ and _‘Betas’ Revealing Kinks!’_ ), surprised at how, well, _normal_ werewolves seemed to be, despite their obvious differences from humans. Isaac’s exposé was about deforestation, and how it’s affected packs and their dynamics in America, and it’s disconcerting how thought-provoking it is. Then again, Stiles was always a little weird in finding subjects that caught his attention. The only thing weird about this would probably be why it took him so long to find werewolves fascinating.

When he got to the photo spread, he gulped. If he’d wanted to see what Derek’s work looked like for a magazine, he probably shouldn’t have picked the sex issue to work with first. The model was credited on the glossy page as ‘Jeremy’, and he looked – well, just as expected from a werewolf posing for a gay werewolf magazine sex issue. He was chiselled and blond, all hard lines and abs as he was posing against the hood of a rusty old pickup, jeans open and slung dangerously low on his hips. It was an outdoor shot, done during the bright heat of the day, the harsh angles of light accentuating biceps that have, in all honesty, probably been oiled to a sinful shine. He was literally sex on legs, staring down the camera and licking his lips, all jauntily-cocked hipbones and arched back that, as the photos progress, seem to just get lewder and more lascivious despite not one article of clothing being removed.

Stiles closed the magazine with a snap and stuffed it unceremoniously between his mattress again, suddenly feeling prickly and uncomfortable. Okay, and a little bit aroused too, but that was merely for the subject matter, and he was a healthy young man in the peak of his sexual prime. His head was spinning with half-formed thoughts and notions. Derek had done the shoot – he’d been subjected to the smothering good-looks of No-Shirt-Jeremy, who could probably get a regular human to cream their pants by flexing a pectoral. But the shoot had seemed so… natural, inexplicably so. Was it because they were something more than model-and-photographer? Did Derek swing that way? He wouldn’t be surprised, because it wasn’t as though they were in the Middle Ages, and besides, he kind of swung that way himself. Not to mention the freaking magazine he worked for was targeted towards that particular demographic. What he couldn’t understand, as he tossed and turned, was why his own shoot seemed so _ordinary_ in comparison. And why he was feeling so _bothered_ about it.

 

. o O o .

 

Derek would be lying to himself if he didn’t admit that his mind had been all over the place after the photo-shoot on Monday. It wasn’t like him at all, he groused, sitting at his computer desk in the studio. He prided himself on his professional conduct, especially during shoots for _‘NECKS ‘n THROATS’_ , when the subject matter was a little more… delicate, he could say… than normal. In hindsight, that was probably one of the reasons Jeremy had become such a diva, because Derek had constantly turned him down from the get-go, and no amount of flattery or sexy poses seemed to even pique his interest in the slightest. He suppressed a pained groan remembering the debacle after the last issue, that goddamned sex-themed one that Peter had insisted they do once a year. Christ, that had been the most extreme case of awkward in the history of absolutely everything ever. The photos had come out well, but he’d felt so uncomfortable trying to take photos of a model who was trying to eye-fuck him through the lens. Still, the pictures had come out well, and the issue had been a hit. Couldn’t ask for anything more than that.

He glanced down at the manila envelope perched on his desk. He’d be lying, again, if he said that he hadn't spent his entire time since the shoot editing the photographs. Technically, he still had four days left to do them in, since they were due the next Monday for proofing, but he hadn't been able to let them be. It was Thursday now (goddamn, he hated Thursdays), and every moment he’d had at work was spent shut away in the studio, scratching away furiously at his graphics tablet, every so often smacking the side of the battered WACOM pen to keep it working. He really needed to buy a new one, since the touch sensor on this one was on the fritz so often, but he never really got around to it.

And damn, but it hadn't been difficult to do. Not so much because of the editing work, because really, it was minimal. It mostly involved cropping and adjusting the levels of the photos, changing the angling slightly and sorting out the usable ones from the duds. He hadn't needed to edit anything on Stiles at all – despite being a college student, his skin was clear and good, and his eyes were neither puffy nor sunken. He hadn't edited out a single mole or freckle that had peppered across his skin. If anything, he’d found them marvellously charming, adding another layer to his already striking features. And, god, the way he’d smelled – Derek’s keen lupine senses had almost drowned in the aroma that had been Stiles’ scent. It smelled like books, like knowledge and research, a tang of ginger and a candy sweetness that almost bordered on saccharine, excitable and young. When he’d talked, his scent became almost overpowering and heady, making Derek lose his train of thought more than once during the shoot. He’d smelled fucking fantastic.

Derek shook his head roughly to clear the thoughts away. He was vastly unimpressed with the way he’d been thinking off-tangent, practically _mooning_ over a college student like he was a teenager. The last time he’d felt this strongly about somebody so fast had been Kate, and Jesus H. Christ, hadn't that been a mistake he’d regret for the rest of his fucking life. _No_ , he thought harshly as he swallowed, parched and needing his caffeine fix. He needed to focus on his job, and get a move on, not sit in his chair all day and rhapsodize about some kid he met once and would very likely never meet again. He stood abruptly and snatched the envelope up, stalking through the office and rapping on Peter’s open door.

“Come in,” came his uncle’s annoyingly-passive voice, and Derek took a few steps in, placing the envelope on the desk in front of the other. “Keen, were we?” Peter asked, picking up the packet with a raised eyebrow, the controlled smile never wavering from his face.

“I didn’t want to waste any more time than I had to,” Derek answered, his answer true enough. “I’ve got the digitals on the USB stick inside, but those are the ones I think could work best. You just have to pick which ones you want.”

Peter nodded understandingly as he lifted out the thick stack of photos, looking through them calmly. Almost all of them had been good, except for the ones where Stiles’ ceaselessly-moving hands had blurred, or the lighting had been wrong. He’d even included the final one he’d taken, where Stiles’ neck had been bared. Derek didn’t know if Stiles knew the exact meaning of his action just then, or if he’d simply followed an instruction. Either way, he’d have been a fool not to include it – it was a beautiful photo, after all.

“He’s different,” Peter remarked, his words carefully neutral as usual. Derek resisted the strong urge to roll his eyes.

“He’s a temp from _Martin’s_ modelling. I managed to call in a favour from the manager who I met at one of those functions last year. It was… productive, at least. So you think you can use them?” He jerked his chin at the stack of photos Peter was examining, fully aware that he’ll agree to having them in the magazine, since cut-off time is so close and Peter _despised_ leaving things unplanned or to the last minute.

“These will be fine,” he said at last, shuffling them back into a neat stack. “I’ll get Boyd to sort the layout and help me pick them.”

“So I’m pretty much done for the day,” Derek trailed off purposefully, hoping that he could leave early. He _had_ spent a lot of his free time editing those photos (though if anybody asked, he’d say he did it out of obligation to the magazine, instead of his own personal choice). Peter seemed to pick up on his hopefulness, because he appeared as delighted as can be to crush his dreams with that beatific smile that makes Derek want to punch things.

“That’s good, then, because there’s a stack of paperwork that needs filling out, which I just had Erica put on your desk,” he beamed, his lips only pulling wider as a groan escaped his nephew – Derek hated paperwork with a passion. “But I did also want you to go on a coffee run for me before that.”

“Right,” Derek grumbled back, leaning dejectedly against the door frame. At least it would get him out of the office for a few minutes. “Just the usual, then?”

“Oh, no. Edith from marketing told me about this great little place on Oak Street where they serve the most divine blueberry bagels. Angelini's, I believe it’s called. Pick me up one of those with my usual.”

“Oak Street?” Derek spluttered. “That’s on the other side of town! It’s a twenty minute drive away! Your coffee is going to be stone cold by the time I get back, you do realise that, right?” He jerked his thumb in a general direction behind him, indicating the Starbucks across the street where Derek got the coffees every morning since their machine busted. “What’s wrong with Starbucks?”

“Starbucks doesn’t have blueberry bagels,” Peter said softly and slowly, as if explaining something simple to a very young, particularly unintelligent child. ”But, if it makes you feel any better, you can drop into Starbucks on your way back and get my coffee just before you come back with my bagel. Off you go now.” And he made that dismissive little hand-wave that never ceased to make Derek’s teeth grind. Derek headed for his desk and grabbed his Camaro’s keys, and swore up and down on the very moon itself that if he ever met this damn Edith-From-Marketing, he was personally going to tear her head off for this.

 

. o O o .

 

Ostensibly, Derek was still in a pissy mood when he arrived at Angelini’s, though it could be because he had been sent on an almost hour-long round trip _for a fucking bagel_. He had never set foot inside the place before today, but knew the street well enough to be able to park close by. It was a middle-sized diner, comforting and cosy and home-like, complete with old-style lace curtains in the windows and pots of bright red begonias near the front till. It was quiet for that time of the day, but then again it was past lunch, and Oak Street was pretty far out of the way of anything big in the area. For all the space, there was maybe a handful of people at the most.

He ordered that cursed bagel and waited for the sweet old Italian lady to bag it up, sighing through his nose and admitting that at least this errand got him out of the office for a little while, as annoying as it was. He pocketed the change and turned to leave when he caught a familiar scent, overpowered by the freshly-baked apple pie loaded with cinnamon just out of the kitchen ovens, but with his head tilted just so… yes, there it was. He peered cautiously around the counter and there, right in the very back corner table, was Stiles. He was writing something on a notepad and had a couple of books open in front of him, sipping a milkshake through a straw and _holy shit, it was Stiles_. Derek almost crushed the paper bag between his fingers as his head snapped back, turning around as if a half-second of a glance from the opposite end of a café could alert him. After a few second’s silent (but fierce) deliberation, he squared off his shoulders and set a casual look on his face, before heading on over to the table. Stiles didn’t immediately notice him, but as he approached the side of the table and stood there, he put his pen down to turn the page, and suddenly there were honey-coloured eyes looking up at him and Jesus Christ, Derek swore he felt his stomach flip.

“Derek! Ah, hello?” Stiles blinked, clearly surprised as the greeting came out more like a question than anything. He was wearing a t-shirt with a cartoon character on the front and jeans, and his milkshake smelled strongly of strawberry-flavoured syrup. It was all rather overwhelming, and Derek quickly swallowed the lump in his throat before talking.

“Hi. Hey. Saw you down the end here, thought I’d say hi.” He gave a small wave, the bag crinkling awkwardly in his grasp, and immediately wished he hadn't done that, or maybe gone for something that had looked a little smoother, a little more impressive. Stiles didn’t seem to notice, though, because he shot Derek back a smile and gave a little wave back from across the table.

It shouldn’t have felt like a personal victory, but Derek still mentally pumped his fist in the air.

“How was-? Did the photos-?” Stiles began, scratching at his temple with the back of his pen.

“They came out well. You were great to work with. I wanted to say thanks again for coming out to do the shoot for us. You really helped us out.”

“It was nothing, seriously. Actually, it was pretty fun, I’m glad I could be of assistance,” Stiles’ smile, if possible, grew even wider. “Besides, you guys paid me anyway. Helped me get this bad boy.” He held up one of the open books on the table proudly, thick enough to cause permanent lasting damage to somebody if used as an offensive weapon. Derek glanced at the title and pieced together that it was for his studies.

“So are you on break? Or finished for the day?” he asked, genuinely curious to know more about the young man that seemed to have his head in a spin. Stiles had an air of content calmness around him, his heartbeat slow and relaxed, completely at ease in his surroundings. The heel of his right palm was smudged in blue ink from his pen. Derek didn’t know why he found it so appealing, but he did.

“Just a break, unfortunately. Thursdays are my worst days. I have classes until almost eight in the evening, but there’s a three-hour break right after lunch, which totally sucks because it means I have three hours to waste, but at the same time _doesn’t_ suck, because it means I have three hours to do assignments and homework in. I usually hide myself in here, since the library and cafeteria are always packed tighter than a tin of sardines, and most guys my age that frequent them tend to forget the purpose of antiperspirant is more of a public courtesy than anything else.”

“Right,” Derek rasped, not feeling quite as verbose, especially when Stiles paused a moment to lick a stray drop of syrup from the edge of the glass off his thumb. Derek squashed down a strangled noise and scrunched the top of the paper bag.

“I should probably go,” he said, gesturing to the crumpled bag in his death-grip. “On a coffee run, had to get the blueberry bagels from here for the boss.”

“Don’t care for the sweet ones much myself, I prefer the plain ones toasted and drowning in cream cheese,” Stiles replied, and _holy hell_ Derek had to quash the impulse to freak out because he and Stiles shared the same preference in bagels. “Oh well, different strokes for different folks. It was good seeing you again, though.”

“You too, good luck with your studying.” Derek replied, allowing himself a hint of a smile to cross over his face, despite feeling like he could cartwheel all the way back to his car now.

“Thanks, man. See you around, yeah?”

And just like that, Derek’s mood had done a complete 180. He found himself grinning like a loon as he drove back to the office, wondering if maybe he could toast the bagel in the staff room and try make it a regular Thursday occurrence to drop in at that diner. The idea made Thursdays suddenly seem appealing again.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my god, I'm so sorry this chapter has come so late! I've been ridiculously busy with university and productions, and I leave for Japan in two days, so I've been working my butt off trying to post something before I leave and have NO INTERNET FOR WEEKS.
> 
> Thank you all for your patience and your encouragement! You folks are literally the best ever. <3
> 
>  
> 
> [For those who've asked, my Tumblr account is HERE.](http://yijitumbles.tumblr.com/)

Derek decided to put whatever nonsense had been happening in his head to rest. He was firmly putting his foot down about it too. He knew it was a dangerous thing to have – this sudden onset of fascination for someone he barely knew. And, aside from the short conversation during the shoot and the knowledge of his bagel preference, he hardly knew a thing about Stiles Stilinski. The last time he had someone so completely wrapped up in his mind was Kate, and… well, he still couldn’t bring himself to go to the pharmacy and meet the eyes of the woman whose husband she ran off with.

He knew full well that he was only intrigued by this specific individual because of his wolf. He had heard cases of how a werewolf could be attracted to a person by scent alone, so to him it only made sense that sometimes, the impulse could be erroneous. He had lived with two warring halves of himself all his life – his human side, which was calm and rational, and his wolf, which ran completely on instinct and was impulsive to a fault. It wasn’t often that his instincts got the better of him, especially in the last few years, after the fire claimed his family, after Kate. He perfected his poker face, and built brick walls around himself against the world.

Another reason he didn’t want to dwell on this was because he just can’t. While Laura had always told him he had the emotional sensitivity of a toothbrush, Derek liked to take his time with personal affairs, really think things through (almost to the point of over-thinking, sometimes). He analysed this fixation carefully from all sides. He was scared, partly because he doesn’t feel emotionally ready to start something, because _holy hell_ relationships are a big fucking thing. But also because he was apprehensive that this attraction he has, this odd enchantment with a complete stranger, might simply be the work of olfactory compatibility and synapses. Perhaps Stiles might be a truly terrible person once he got past the initial haze of scent. Kate had been the same – she had seemed perfect in that cold, calculating sort of manner, a mature woman who oozed sex and confidence from her pores, charming a gullible young man into a relationship that turned out to be a thousand different shades of wrong. What worried Derek the most, though, was the idea that maybe, just _maybe_ , Stiles might be exactly what he’s looking for. And that Stiles won’t think of him the same way back.

He knew what he looked like. Obviously, he’s owned a mirror or two in his lifetime. He’s been in bars where people have stared at him like they were dying of thirst, and he was an oasis. They never got past his quiet nature, though, happy to label him into something far more unfriendly and disagreeable than he truly felt. It wasn’t his fault, really, that he was more quiet than glib. And someone as talkative as Stiles should have put him off immediately, but the fact that he didn’t, that it was the exact opposite, really brought up some serious questions.

He was more surprised than he should have been when, after a solid week of very specifically _not_ thinking about it, he was racing out the door of the office and tearing down the street in his Camaro, the change for Peter’s bagel burning hot in his pocket.

 

. o O o .

 

“Dude, no, seriously, I don’t wanna go.”

 _“But you always come to Bowling-Nacho-Night!”_ Scott’s voice over the phone was, somehow, even more grating and annoying than usual. Stiles would have probably felt bad for snapping back, but it was Thursday, and he hated Thursdays with a passion. Never mind that he’d just suffered through three days of abject horror and general misery. So maybe Scott could cut him just a tiny amount of slack for once.

“Scott, look,” he fumbled the strap of his heavy backpack onto his shoulder as he walked along the footpath, juggling the phone awkwardly between his other shoulder and ear. “I love you, man, I really do, but it’s been a shitty week for me. I have this huge paper due tomorrow that I need to finish and proofread tonight, plus I still have to type out my bibliography and reference sheet, and make sure to hand it in at an exact time so that Harris won’t be a total douchemonster at me. So, not much in the proper mindset to kick your ass at the pins tonight.”

_“This isn’t because of Danny, is it?”_

Stiles heaved a sigh through his mouth and pinched the bridge of his nose tiredly. For someone as dense as Scott seemed, sometimes he could be eerily perceptive of the situation. Or maybe it was because they’d been best friends since they were six, and he could read him like an open book, even if he was still with his head amongst the clouds over Allison. And yeah, maybe it was kind of annoying that they couldn’t hang out as often as they used to back in high school, what with Stiles’ crazy university hours and Scott’s prac at Deaton’s clinic helping him fill his veterinary science degree’s required work-experience hours.

“Yeah,” he sighed outright again. He’d had class with Danny again, and they’d displayed their oral presentation to the class. And, right in the middle of lunch after class, Stiles had ruined everything. High off the accomplished feeling of a job well done, he’d gone and asked Danny out in a more-than-platonic-friend manner, something he’d have never done before – he just wasn’t the sort of person that acted on his instincts, that’s all. Danny had swallowed thickly, then smiled at him and turned him down in the kindest, nicest way possible, saying that he was flattered but he really didn’t see Stiles in that way, and he hoped they could still be friends. It was how _nice_ he was being about it all that really killed him, though, still waving at him in the hallways and acting like Stiles hadn't spilled his metaphorical guts out to him like a lovesick teenager. If he’d acted like a douche afterwards, then yeah, maybe he could feel better about it all, but Danny was just… argh.

_“Look, man, I’m sorry. But there’s plenty of other fish in the sea, okay? And we’ll, like, hangout on the weekend or something. My mom’s on night shifts so we can play Xbox and order pizza in, yeah?”_

“Scott, my friend, you are a true gentleman,” he finally cracked a genuine smile for what felt like the first time in days. “Okay, look, I have to go and keep working on my thing, but I’ll call you tonight and we can iron out the details for some major playing time okay?”

_“Sure thing. I gotta go too, my break’s almost finished and we got a nervous dog in today who’s been making messes all over the place."_

“Good luck being on pooper-scooper duty, bro.” he laughed good-naturedly, exchanging a few sniping name-calls that, after so many years, could only be classed as affectionate. He glanced at the time displayed on his cell screen before pocketing it, mentally gauging his work-load. If he stayed at Angelini’s for an hour to finish typing his bibliography in peace, he could return to the campus library and finish up his notes just before his next class. Ideally, he shouldn’t even be going to the café with the dissertation’s deadline so close, but hey, week from hell, and besides, he really, really craved one of their custard lattices. He brought his notepad out of his backpack and he pulled on the door of the coffee-shop with good-spirited intent to order his food and beverage and plop down on his usual table and bust out some badass thesis-work. His upswing of good mood at the thought of chewy pastry and milky custard was suddenly cut short as he ran into the person that was currently exiting, colliding with them hard enough for him to bounce back off and drop the notepad onto the floor, seeing as the other appeared to be made out of brick-tough muscles. A soft mutter of curses followed Stiles as he bent down hastily to retrieve his jotter, and he glanced up quickly to find – Derek Hale. Or, to be more accurate, Derek Hale with coffee spilled down the front of his shirt.

“Holy shit!” Stiles exclaimed, stuffing the memo pad back into his bag and shooting to his feet like a rocket. “Derek! Hi! Shit. Sorry, man, sorry. I had my head in the clouds and wasn’t thinking of – are you okay? Shit, is that coffee hot? Hang on, I’ll grab some napkins or something.”

“Don’t bother,” the other grimaced, glancing into his cup and, seeing it empty (since he seemed to be wearing his entire beverage) pitched it into the trashcan beside the door. “It was iced.” He looked up and seemed surprised to see him, and then his face changed to something that made Stiles feel, if anything, even worse, because it seemed painfully casual and nonplussed, despite his shirt-front drenched in coffee.

“I’ll pay for the dry-cleaning,” Stiles offered, but the photographer casually waved his proposal with a calm wave of his hand.

“It’s fine, seriously,” Derek shifted his grip on the paper bag in his hand. “I have other shirts at the office; this’ll just come out in the wash.”

“At least – let me buy you a coffee to make up for the one I spilled, okay? Alleviate my guilt.” Stiles ran a hand through his hair, now longer than his usual buzz-cut (he really should get it trimmed or something), feeling stressed and making it stick up at odd angles. Derek looked at him silently for a long moment, half-scowl and serious eyebrows unmoving like he was assessing the seriousness of the situation. After a few long seconds (in which Stiles honestly felt himself sweating, as though he were being tested on the answer in exam-like settings) Derek’s face eased up a little, the corners of his lips not quite curving upwards, but definitely a lot less severe than before.

“I really should be getting back to the office now, though, so I don’t really have the time,” he commented, glancing down at the watch on his wrist, “How’s tomorrow for you?”

“Tomorrow?” Stiles floundered for a moment, brain still clunking through the rusty gears that hadn't been oiled with sugar yet. “Oh. Shit. Tomorrow I have an assessment due. But, uh. I can go afterwards? Like, four o’clock? Is that okay?”

“Four’s fine,” Derek nodded his head. “Meet here again?”

“Sure,” he gave a quick smile, and was glad to see the other return it, if by smile you meant ‘looking slightly less murderous’.

“I’ll see you then,” Derek replied, and with a small wave he turned around and walked down the street, giving Stiles a (very nice) view of his broad shoulders, and a (very startling) realisation that someone might misconstrue this as asking them out for a coffee as in _coffee-date-coffee_. But then again, Derek Hale looked like some sort of Greek god, and Stiles was… well, _Stiles_.

“Nah,” he said to himself, out loud, to reaffirm the situation before his sugar-deprived mind could make something out of it that wasn’t there. It definitely wasn’t a coffee date.

 

. o O o .

 

“I need to leave early tomorrow afternoon,” Derek practically slammed the bagel on Peter’s desk, less with enthusiasm and more with ferocity. “Urgent business, can’t get out of it.”

“You do realize that you’re going to have to pay the time back, don’t you?” Peter’s smile was warm and his eyes dancing as he took a bite out of his bagel. For once, Derek didn’t rise to the bait, he merely grunted and pivoted on his heel, stalking back to his office desk. He’d spent a good twenty minutes in Angelini’s after his bagel order had been passed over the counter for no reason, hoping for something that might not even happen (that had, thank god, even if it’d happened completely by accident). Hunkering down in his chair, he spent the rest of the day in surprising single-minded focus, clearing the surface free of papers and those accursed broken pencils. It didn’t matter that his shirt was gross and damp and shoved unceremoniously at the bottom of his bag, that the new polo was itchy and slightly too tight around his shoulders, or that he still stank of iced chai. He needed to get as much work done as possible, because tomorrow he wasn’t going to be able to focus on a single thing.

After all, he had a coffee date.

 

. o O o .

 

Stiles wasn’t exactly sure why he felt nervous, sitting at his usual corner table. His palms felt sweaty, and he discreetly wiped them against his jean-clad thighs underneath the table. The relieved, weightless feeling he usually got when he was free of assessments and projects was missing, despite his hard slog to finish everything coherently. And now he was here twenty minutes earlier than he needed to be, and freaking the hell out.

Okay, so, it technically wasn’t a date. It was merely an exchange of caffeinated beverages between two people because his clumsiness had deprived the second party of their own drink, that was all. Possibly, he was overanalysing this, but that’s just what he did, that’s _how he worked_. In the space of five minutes, he’d alternated between drumming his fingertips on the table, jiggling his leg, and tapping a sachet of sugar against the porcelain holder. He forced himself to stop, realizing that, to an outsider, those just looked like damn impatient actions, and he didn’t want to come off looking like an irascible jerkwad. To calm himself down, he pulled out one of his textbooks from his satchel and opened it somewhere around the middle, intent on losing himself to the mythological practices and beliefs of a culture long past, and not think about Derek.

Because, to be perfectly honest, he’d thought about Derek on his own time. Not in a dirty way, no, he’d never admit to that. But Derek Hale was a fine specimen of a man, and the closest thing he’d ever come across was someone from those magazines and websites that, while enjoyable, aren’t exactly safe for work (or a computer that isn’t password protected and in easy reach of his dad). He’d be a lying liar if he said that the photographer wasn’t devastatingly handsome, but somehow Stiles couldn’t bring himself to feel any glimmer of an idea concerning himself and Derek because… well, Derek was _Derek_ and Stiles was _Stiles_. To be more accurate, Derek Hale was a handsome, successful, most-probably-attached-already man with an interesting career and cheekbones that could cut diamonds, and Stiles was still a gangly youth, all flailing limbs and pale skin and freckles who was painfully, ridiculously, _ludicrously_ uncoordinated. Regardless of the fact that, despite his obviously reserved nature, the photographer had made the effort to converse with him during their shoot, and had even spoken to him briefly outside the studio, if only to exchange quick greetings.

Sure, Stiles had entertained hopes in high school that perhaps he could end up with someone like Lydia. But now, with Lydia as a (surprising) ally and fresh off the rejection with Danny, he’d learnt that people like him didn’t end up with people like Lydia, or Danny, or – he cut himself off before he could even complete that sentence, because nope, he wasn’t going to go there. He’d just settled down and was halfway through an interesting piece on the legends of selkies when a tap on the book’s cover snapped him out of his reverie. Peering over the edge of the pages, he shouldn’t have been surprised to see Derek standing there – and yet, he was completely taken aback.

“Hey! Hi! How’re you?” he spoke out in a rush, snapping the book shut and rising quickly from his chair. Derek was, as usual, ridiculous in his hotness, his face a set into a terse expression and offering a polite nod in acknowledgement. Taking in a breath, Stiles squared his shoulders, as if about to throw himself headfirst into a boxing ring. “Sorry again about yesterday, I was totally spacing out and wasn’t looking where I was going.”

“It’s alright,” Derek replied, his hands stuffed into his pockets and his entire posture sort of still and on edge. He jerked his chin towards the counter behind them purposefully. “You want to order?”

A couple of minutes later had the two of them sitting opposite each other on the table, coffees between them. Stiles watched Derek stir his black coffee and nursed the hot chocolate between his palms, desperately trying to think of something to say, anything at all that could break the silence going on between them. It wasn’t an uncomfortable silence, funnily enough, but he was fraught with questions for the other man. Now that he wasn’t busy posing and trying to look less like his usual, goofy self, he wanted to hear Derek talk about himself, what foods he liked, what music he listened to. Good lord, he mentally slapped himself as he took a sip of his drink, it’s almost as if he was _romantically interested in Derek Hale_.

“I went to your portfolio website,” he ventured conversationally, fiddling with the cup’s handle. Derek didn’t look up from his coffee, but the straight tense of his shoulders seemed to get a whole lot straighter. “It was – well, I’m not gonna lie, I have absolutely no photography experience. But I really liked the photos I saw. They were really good.”

And just like that, the bizarre edginess between them seemed to vanish. Derek’s eyes swung up to meet his, and his lips pulled into what was, unmistakably, a small smile. Stiles almost dropped his teaspoon, he was that entranced by it. “Thanks,” Derek murmured, his voice betraying a small hint of embarrassment. “It’s sort of something I’ve always done, but I really wanted to branch out and do more artistic shoots, instead of always the same type of modelling ones.”

“You should,” Stiles agreed enthusiastically, “The ones with the balloons in the field was really nice. You have a great eye for composition and… stuff.” He made rotating motions with his wrist, and Derek huffed out a small breath, which Stiles couldn’t quite place as a laugh but counted as one anyway. “Yeah, sorry, I was up all night finishing off a paper and my brain’s still mush.”

“How’s the studying coming along, anyway?” Derek gestured to the closed book on the table beside Stiles’ elbow with his coffee cup. “You seem like you’re enjoying your course, at least.”

With familiar ground to stand on, Stiles was finally able to do what he did best – projectile-vomit words in a rush on a variety of topics. They talked about Stiles’ course and his assignments (“Professor Harris is a total dick, by the way,” Stiles insisted emphatically), and then the conversations took off from there. Derek wasn’t a big talker, but he seemed genuinely interested in Stiles’ conversation, and contributed to the exchange enough that Stiles didn’t feel like he was giving a one-person monologue. He found out Derek had a sister in New York, and that he wanted to branch out a career in artistic photography because processing photographs was calming. They both attended Beacon Hills High, though Derek played baseball rather than lacrosse. One cup of coffee turned into two, and then three while they shared a serving of toasted bagels between them.

“Man, I didn’t realize how much I missed socialising with the outside world,” Stiles rolled his eyes good-naturedly as he brushed the crumbs from his fingers. “Essays just kill me, though. It takes me forever to figure out what subject I want to write it on, and by then it’s usually too close to the deadline to be comfortable. My next paper is going to be the longest one yet, so I’ll probably build a pillow fort in my room and not leave.”

“You don’t go out much?” Derek asked, his eyebrows rising a tad in surprise. Stiles shrugged noncommittally. “I used to heaps back in high school with my best friend, but since he got a girlfriend senior year it’s been kind of hard to.”

“What about that guy you mentioned at the shoot?”

“Danny?” Stiles flinched back a little, surprised that the other would remember a small detail from their conversation at the shoot so long ago. Hearing the name brought an uncomfortable twinge in his ribcage, and he toyed with the cup’s handle again, knee bouncing underneath the table. “Ah, well. It kind of didn’t work out – wasn’t interested, so, yeah. I think we’re friends now? I don’t really know.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Derek replied calmly, and Stiles wished that the other hadn't decided to take a sip of coffee in that moment so he could see what expression he was wearing on that striking face. “I was going to ask,” he continued, settling the cup back down on the saucer, “The next issue comes out in a week’s time, but if you’re interested I can email you the photos from the shoot.”

“Yeah, I’d like that,” Stiles smiled back, glad to be off the topic altogether. He fished out a pen from his bag and jotted his email address on a napkin. Hesitating a moment, he also wrote his cell phone number underneath, hoping it didn’t come across too forward. “If you ever need a model for a last minute shoot, just give me a buzz, yeah? I have my phone on me all the time, so,” he trailed off, sliding the napkin the short distance between them. Derek picked it up in his fingers, bored a hole through the ply serviette with his intense gaze, and then very carefully folded it in half and tucked it into his pocket.

“I’ll definitely keep that in mind,” he said, and Stiles had to stifle the incredibly goofy grin that seemed to be fighting its way onto his face.

 

. o O o .

 

_**Thanks for the coffee today, enjoyed it. Best of luck on your paper.** _

Stiles reread the message for the eighth time and flailed hopelessly on his bed, glad that his father had gone to sleep already and wasn’t there to witness his partial mental breakdown. After eighteen separate drafts, he sent a message back that was somewhat coherent to his current frame of mind.

_**No probs!! Glad for the company c u around soon I hope!!** _

Thanking every separate god, deity and mythical creature capable of granting wishes he knew of for the miracle of autocorrect, he sent off the message with a final beep. Then he saved Derek’s number into his contact list, and proceeded to have a small, furiously silent fit on his comforter.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back! 
> 
> Thank you SO MUCH to everybody who's sent me kudos and comments, you guys have been ridiculously glorious I am not worthy *gross sobbing*
> 
> So sorry this chapter's come so late, but UGH, Japan was UH-MAZING and here, have some writing I did while I soaked in hot springs and sat under blooming cherry blossom trees (and I am not even joking JSYK).
> 
> Time to try and catch up on my Tumblr newsfeed, ahaha, not going to happen.
> 
> (pssst! [My Tumblr](http://yijitumbles.tumblr.com/) for tumbling!)

Okay. This is seriously starting to get ridiculous.

Stiles hadn't even known Derek existed before the shoot, and now it’s like he’s seeing him _everywhere_. Well, not everywhere, to be exact, but he _did_ see him filling a shiny, sleek black beauty of a car with gas as he drove down the main road. And the other day he’d run into him by accident in the cereal aisle of the supermarket, and he guessed that Derek was easily surprised because he dropped the box of Cornflakes he’d been examining like a metric fucktonne of bricks when Stiles had tapped him on the shoulder and said hi. Maybe now that he knew who Derek was, and had exchanged more than a dozen words with the guy, his brain was noticing when their paths met instead of glazing over again and switching to ‘inhumanly gorgeous individual present, switch off all coherent functions and hide’ mode.

Stiles wasn’t mooning over Derek. No way, no how.

It did annoy him, however, that Derek didn’t have a Facebook account.

He should know. He’d scoured the internet in search of any social media site that Derek Hale was a member of, determined to friend him even if it meant signing up for yet another damned website.

Stiles tapped the end of his ballpoint against his desk, eyes glazed over and not really looking at his computer screen. He’d thrown himself into his essay with an enthusiasm he hadn't known he could possibly possess. He’d actually decided on a topic straight off the bat, instead of flitting between a half dozen ideas without getting anything done. Comparative mythology – the comparison of myths and legends between different cultures to identify similarities in themes and characteristics. It was something he’d been itching to write, especially as his interests in ancient myths deepened during his years at university. The idea that cultures thousands of miles and hundreds of years apart could have so many similarities in deities (borrowed or stolen, or warped through the fabric of time and human word-of-mouth) was fascinating, at least to him, anyway. All he needed to do now was decide whether to write about linguistic relationships, historical comparatives, or mythological parallels.

Except that Stiles couldn’t focus on his essay. He couldn’t focus on much of anything right now, because all he could think about is goddamn Derek Hale and his preposterous hotness.

He was desperately trying not to give himself any false hopes or expectations. But the _‘not-quite-coffee-date’_ coffee date they’d had on Friday had seriously affected his A-game when he’d gone over to Scott’s yesterday – and nobody, _nobody_ , beat Stiles at video games. Effectively, getting together with Scott to play games was a guaranteed ego-stroke in his shooting prowess, but Stiles hadn't been able to get Derek’s incredible eye colour or ludicrous jaw stubble out of his head. And the way the guy had actually _encouraged_ conversation with him! They’d had three coffees each and split a bagel, so that meant that Derek hadn't really been clamouring to get out of there in a hurry, right?

Groaning, he scrubbed his hands over his face and through his hair, making it stick up at odd angles and look stupid – thank god he was home, away from the accusing, piteous looks of the general public. Deciding that maybe a game of Minecraft was in order to get his thoughts away from a certain dark-haired photographer, he determined that, before he got settled down for the night, he’d shoot one final incendiary message to Scott for kicking his ass last night. After all, it wouldn’t do to have Scott’s self-esteem boosted on a one-off win just because his noggin wasn’t screwed on straight. He grabbed his phone and hopped downstairs, texting with only half his attention as he shoved some Hot Pockets into the microwave and argued with his dad (already half out the door for his next shift) about the nutritional value of them.

“How come you always make me eat that godawful tofu crap, but you get to eat Hot Pockets?” his father complained, doing up the last few buttons on his shirt.

“Be _cause_ -” Stiles replied pointedly, hitting ‘send’ on his text to Scott ( _ **’Just cuz u totally reamed my ass yesterday doesn’t mean ill let u again, buddy, ur perpetually my bitch‘**_ ) “-your young, healthy, strapping youth of a son doesn’t have a _heart problem_ , or a cardiologist on his backside threatening bodily harm if her recommended diet isn’t followed. Besides, you get your cheat days, that should be enough.”

“I only get _Tuesdays_ , Stiles, and that’s because it’s cheap pizza night, _and_ you won’t let me order anything with meat! Come on, you’re killing me!” the sheriff practically _whined_ , and Stiles barely controlled the urge to roll his eyes at his own dad as he stomped his way out of the house. The sound of his phone chirping happily with a reply made Stiles move his eyes away from staring intently at the food spinning in the microwave to check on what nonsensical comeback Scott could possibly think of. Instead, the text that he read (juggling the plate of food in his hand) followed thusly:

 

_**I think you have the wrong number?** _

 

“What.” he deadpanned, staring blankly at the screen display as his hands fumbled with the hot plate, closing the microwave door with an elbow. “What.” He said again, because at that moment he couldn’t quite bring himself to do anything else except produce monosyllabic reactions to the fact that he just sent a _very questionable message_ to an unknown number. Dreading the outcome, he nevertheless scrolled back to his phone history, certain that Scott had been the last person he’d messaged. When the name of the recipient flashed up, Stiles-

Well, to put it lightly: Stiles had a mild conniption.

For posterity’s sake, and to be particularly accurate to detail, Stiles shrieked loudly enough that his father, in the driveway trying to surreptitiously stuff the contents of a Denny’s bag into the trash bin, came scrambling back into the house, hand on his holster. He found Stiles plastered against the kitchen cupboards, arms splayed against the wooden doors. The Hot Pockets were on the ground, and he was holding his cell phone as far away from himself as humanly possible, eyes wild and bulging as though the tiny electronic gadget had somehow morphed into the antichrist (or something equally horrifying).

“Jesus Ch- _Stiles!_ Next time _warn me_ if you’re going to have a nervous breakdown! A _loud_ one! Keep it down, dammit!” And with a huff, and nary a backwards glance, he stormed off down the driveway, crisis averted. For himself, anyway. Stiles stood frozen for well over a minute, before collecting his shattered mentality and trying to rectify this horrible situation, thumbs flying over the keypad of his phone.

Oh, fuck a duck, nothing ever went his damn way.

 

. o O o .

 

When Derek’s cell buzzed against his kitchen counter, he startled out of his eye-glazed reverie and blinked owlishly. It was after hours – nobody ever sent him texts unless it was important, or something was very, very wrong. Gut twisting with concern, he picked up his battered old mobile and opened the inbox, surprised to see it was a text from Stiles, of all people. This did very funny things to his ribcage, because he had spent every day since the ‘Coffee Date That Wasn’t Really A Date’ –with his head in a loop. Some of his worst fears had been realized that day – Stiles was not only attractive to him, but also funny, charming and incredibly interesting to talk to. And Derek, being the useless antisocial lump that he was, had spent the first half of their time hardly daring to talk, instead letting Stiles ramble on about his school and his career prospects and anything else his brain had wandered off with.

It really _had_ been preposterously endearing.

Stiles seemed to do something to Derek that nobody else had done before. With Kate, it had been – well, even now he didn’t know what had happened. He’d been attracted to her sensual confidence, true, but attraction and affection were two entirely different things. And in a matter of days, this kid had entered his life and managed to burrow under his skin and stay there, like a splinter. If he were to take a step back from the situation and inspect it as an outsider would, he’d be more than convinced that it was an entirely one-sided, strange attraction going on, considering their incredibly limited contact with each other. Despite that knowledge, he was still pleasantly surprised (and a little nervous) that Stiles, _Stiles_ , had initiated contact.

He swallowed the anxious lump in his throat as he thumbed open the unread message. And then his eyes went round as saucers as he read.

He slumped down on his couch, sweatpants bunching up under his knees, feeling his head spin. This message was not meant for Derek. Definitely not for him. Stiles had obviously intended to send it to somebody else, and had sent it to him by accident. His perfidious mind ran off without his permission, picking the text apart and analysing it from every conceivable angle. The way it had been written conveyed a sense of familiarity that mere acquaintances didn’t have, so the recipient must be someone that Stiles has a close relationship with. But the text content suggested more of an intimate relationship rather than a platonic one, as coarse as the subject matter appeared to be.

Oh god. Was it a text for Stiles’ boyfriend?

His mouth set in a firm, unhappy line as he tapped back a neutral response. It couldn’t be… could it? Stiles had only just recently told him about his turndown from that guy he liked (Danny, he remembered the name with vehement detail), so it couldn’t have been… unless in the short space of two days since the coffee-thing he’d managed to find a new boyfriend. Somehow Stiles didn’t seem the type to get attached so fast, but then a new, ugly thought settled into his mind – what if Stiles was one of those guys that had casual, meaningless sex? Maybe this person was a fuck-buddy, and that’s why the text sounded so casual, because they’d done this for a while. No, he shook his head vigorously even as the poisonous thought refused to leave, Stiles wasn’t that sort of person – not that there was anything wrong with that. He was clumsy and adorably awkward and intelligent, and Derek was just reading way too much into a damn text message that wasn’t even meant for him. His inner wolf whined piteously – he’d give his year’s paycheck to have that sort of message sent to him, and _Jesus Christ_ did he just think that?

The phone between his limp fingers started buzzing at an alarming rate, and Derek’s eyes widened as a slew of messages popped up on his screen, one after another in rapid succession, all of them from Stiles.

_**Shit shit siht shit!! Sorry Derek that msg was for Scott** _

 

_**I mean my best friend scott** _

 

_**Who like ttly slaughtered me on Saturday on COD when we had xbox night and I never lose so** _

 

_**Like were not having weird xbox sex nights or anything we just** _

 

_**Okay im going to shut up now plz don’t think im a weirdo** _

 

Derek read each of the messages with the self-realization that he was probably grinning like a loon. He resisted the urge to punch his fist in the air in victory, and then he realised that he was home alone and nobody would judge him in his own apartment, so he did it anyway. His overwhelming sense of relief at Stiles not being into casual sex was only crested by the fact that Stiles messaged him _multiple times_ of his own volition.

 

_**I’m disappointed, Stiles. Would have thought you to be more of a Halo guy.** _

Derek tapped out the reply and hit ‘send’ before he could even process what he was doing. With detached dismay, he stared at the LED display of his phone’s screen, wondering what on earth had possessed him to reply to such an opportunity with a hefty slice of sarcasm instead of something more… flattering? Intelligent? Something that made him sound completely irresistible and charming instead of a snarky douche? Immediately, his mobile buzzed again.

_**OMG dude don’t get me started on comparisons between COD and Halo im ttly a master at both ok** _

 

Propping his bare feet up on the coffee table, he switched on the TV for background noise ( _Mythbusters_ is on – good, let’s see them blow something else up) and tapped a reply back.

 

. o O o .

 

Something wasn’t right. That is to say, Stiles felt like he’d entered some sort of Bizarro World of his life, or been sucked into a parallel dimension or vortex or _something_ , because there was no way that in this lifetime, in this particular universe, Derek Hale was having text conversations with him.

But it was totally happening. He had the messages to prove it saved on his phone, and he was glad that he decided to extend his texting plan from the basic cover ever since, well, he first got his cell phone. And, to date, he hadn’t blown his phone bill out of the water, but he supposed that the only reason for that was that the person he spoke most to was Scott, and they’d been best friends since they were in diapers, _and_ they saw each other every day in school _and_ Skyped now that they were apart in educational campuses. Still, he as Scott probably texted each other a zillion times a day, because Scott and fart jokes were a thing of beauty.

Regardless, he couldn’t seem to wipe the stupid grin off his face as he reads through his message history. Derek seemed to be a lot more verbose when it came to texting – it’s almost as if he feels more comfortable talking when he can think about his replies first. Stiles, born without a brain-to-mouth filter, found it beyond admirable, not to mention that the photographer’s spelling and grammar was putting his own text messages to shame (even if he was relying heavily on autocorrect to revise his mistakes, which he was paying absolutely positively no heed to as he typed feverishly).

He just couldn’t seem to get his head around the fact that he and Derek had a conversation, above all else, about _videogames_. In truth, Stiles could carry a long, rambling (and most of the time one-sided) conversation on just about any topic, but to have something so close to his heart being discussed by someone he didn’t think would was beyond unexpected. He was downright delighted with it, especially when Derek revealed that he owned a Nintendo 64 when he was younger, and his favourite game wasn’t _Mario 64_ (like most people), but _Legend of Zelda_. His heart was literally skipping a beat because _hello_ , Zelda is like his total favourite thing ever, and they had a massive bonding session over their mutual hatred of the water temple.

He was learning little bits and pieces of Derek that made him ridiculously endearing. He read back through the messages, smiling as Derek recounted how he got his first job as a paperboy to earn enough allowance to buy the console and game, and spent most of summer vacation doggedly trying to find every heart piece and Gold Skulltula token, because his particular nature wouldn’t leave the game unfinished, even if he had already defeated Ganondorf in the final temple.

He put the phone alarm on for his morning class wakeup chime, plugged the charger in and switched off the light, tucking the comforter in around himself. Even though he was tired after a long weekend of gameplay and study, it took him a long time to fall asleep. He stared at his ceiling with his arms crossed behind his head, gazing at the glow-in-the-dark stars pasted on the plaster, painstakingly arranged into actual constellations from when he was a kid and entirely obsessed with planets and the solar system. He traced the square box of Pegasus and Cygnus’ cross, and wondered what that peculiar fluttering feeling somewhere in the region of his ribcage could possibly mean.

 

. o O o .

 

He has work in the morning. He shouldn’t be awake right now, but he was. Derek had watched a marathon run of _Mythbusters_ during his long texting session with Stiles, and he was feeling fidgety and agitated. He set out his clothes for the morning, packed his workbag and put on a load of laundry for tomorrow. After that, he did his push-ups and crunches, threw in a set of pull-ups too, and when that didn’t relieve his jittery nerves, he pulled on a jersey and went out for a run. He came back an hour later, pullover damp with sweat from exertion, and took a shower. By the time he slumped into bed, worn out from himself, he was fully expecting to fall asleep almost instantly. He had pushed his limits on the run, even for his werewolf abilities, and it was already late. Despite all this, though, his mind was buzzing, whirring. The restlessness he’s been afflicted with couldn’t seem to leave him alone, in spite of all his efforts to dispel it.

The blankets were down past his waist, and he was only wearing boxers to bed – the night was a little too warm to bother with proper pyjamas or a comforter. He lay still under the light sheet, his brain flittering around for a few minutes before, traitorously, landing on his cell phone, and the last couple of hours he’d spent messaging Stiles. Even with his usual reserved nature, he’d talked an awful lot about nothing in particular. He’d even mentioned his childhood, and Laura on one occasion, and he never talked to anybody about his family, or about his past. Stiles… did something to him. His easy words and uncomplicated demeanour pulled Derek’s guard down. He felt… comfortable. Perhaps a little too much, a little too fast, considering how very little time they’d known each other.

Before he could even think about it, his hand moved from its resting spot against his chest, sliding lower until it was under the thin blanket, fingertips ghosting just above the waistband of his boxers. He remembered the honey-rosewood shade of Stiles’ eyes, the way that little crinkle formed just above his nose when he smiled as he hid his pink lips behind the rim of his cup at the diner. He remembered the pitch of his voice, the stark contrast of his moles against pale, pale skin, wondering if they continue down the rest of his body. His hand slipped lower, past the elastic, fingertips trailing through wiry hair as he huffed out an exhale, recollecting that perfect face, that soft jawline and slightly dishevelled hair.

He was already half-hard when he wrapped his fingers around his cock, a barely-there groan slipping from his throat as he recalled Stiles' mouth, the flawless Cupid’s bow curve of soft, pink lips. The slide of his palm against his skin was a little too dry, but it’s okay, because the memory of Stiles’ mouth made his dick twitch, and there’s a bottle of lube in the bedside cabinet which he reached for only moments later. He should really feel bad about jacking off to somebody who was still a complete stranger, but he couldn’t bring himself to care right now – not when he was shimmying out of his boxers and giving his erection firm, purposeful strokes, eyelids fluttering closed and palm slick. He grunted outright as he summoned the memory of that first, accidental meeting at Angelini’s, where Stiles had licked the syrup off his thumb. He imagined that same tongue, pink and wet, licking a stripe on the underside of his cock, and _fuck_ , his wrist moved a little faster at the thought. Stiles’ mouth, open and wet and inviting, swallowing down his cock with eager enthusiasm.

He’d known from the get-go that he was attracted to the student – even the photo-shoot had been, to his inner wolf, an interested circling, a sniffing of interest. When Stiles had pulled down the collar on his shirt, exposed that pale line of flesh at his throat, he’d seriously had to hold himself back from throwing his camera aside and crowding Stiles against the fake bar, pushing his nose there and breathing him in and in. He’d wanted to bite that perfect angle of neck, the junction of tendon and collarbone, mark him just above the pulse point where people could see, could understand to stay away, because Stiles was _his_. Derek’s hips bucked as his pace sped up, picturing the youth now lying on top of the melamine surface, shirt rucked up under his arms and pants in a crumpled heap on the ground as Derek fucked him, hard and eager.

Derek wondered what Stiles would sound like during sex. He envisioned that he’d be talkative, just as he is in everyday life. A chatty, noisy little thing, pleading and urging and making guttural groans as he begged for Derek to go faster, go harder, give it to him Derek, Derek _Derek please_. The thought alone was positively delectable, and in only a few more strokes he was coming, breath ragged, to the mental image of Stiles arching beneath him, babbling incoherently and writhing against the sheets. Panting, he lay still until his breath slowed down, and then lazily cleaned up the mess against his abdominals with tissues that he haphazardly tossed on the ground. He would clean them up and shower again in the morning, he told himself as he pulled his boxers back on and closed his eyes, falling asleep within minutes. The next morning, he told himself as he drifts off, would give him plenty of opportunity to feel guilty.

 

. o O o .

 

Peter Hale was looking at the sales figures for the latest edition of the magazine, sitting at home in front of the widescreen plasma and swirling a half glass of scotch. Even without Jeremy’s over-the-top sexualised photo spread, the issue had sold higher than average numbers. He wasn’t stupid enough to think that it’s because of the mentally-scintillating articles, either – the photos of that human kid came out well, and he’d gotten plenty of good feedback from the usual critics.

He spent a great deal of time thinking, that evening, before retiring to bed.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter fought me tooth and nail the whole time. Ye gods.
> 
> Also, I've started making ridiculous babby drawings of Stiles and Derek [on my Tumblr](http://yijitumbles.tumblr.com/post/48200499431/ok-so-i-put-the-blame-entirely-on-deej-for-these). Look out for more, I might bring out some artwork and prints for conventions!
> 
> *slinks off to lie facedown on things*
> 
> [My Tumblr](http://yijitumbles.tumblr.com/) for when I smush my face on things.

There were plenty of things Derek was used to seeing at his workplace – it was a carefully structured routine, one that he had known for years. He didn’t even bat an eyelid when he stalked past the front desk clutching coffees like a lifeline, taking in the sight of Erica and Boyd playing tonsil-hockey across the reception desk.

“’Morning,” he grunted, translating Erica’s cheery answer of ‘Mrpghr~!’ as some sort of reply. Boyd didn’t seem to react, but then again he was busy trying not to get his ears wrenched off by his girlfriend’s manicured nails.

The last thing Derek expected to see when he stepped into Peter’s office on Monday, however, was his uncle’s disconcerting smile greeting him as he deposited the cappuccino on the desk. Immediately, Derek’s hackles went up, his body going tense and on edge. He didn’t trust Peter half the time, but when that particular smile crossed his face, that was when he instinctually _knew_ that trouble was coming. It was, as he’d internally labelled it, the ‘Oh-shit-run-for-your-life’ smile, the kind of grin that preceded something going terribly, irrevocably not his way. Even as Peter motioned for him to close the door and sit, Derek mentally assessed how fast he could rip the door from its hinges and fling himself as far away from Peter and whatever hair-brained scheme he had going on in his head.

Instead, he sat down, and gulped his coffee like a madman while his uncle took a dignified sip. If he trusted his gut (and it very seldom led him astray), he had a feeling that he’d need as much caffeine pumped into his blood stream as possible to deal with this.

“We need to talk about the model from the latest issue,” Peter said, putting his coffee down, his fingers laced in front of him like some sort of super villain. Derek took this as his cue to tip his Styrofoam cup vertically and chug the rest of his caffeinated beverage down.

 

. o O o .

 

“Stilinski, I gotta say, you didn’t look half-bad in that magazine,” Jackson smirked at him from across the table, and Stiles prided himself on the fact that he didn’t lean over and jab his fork thoroughly into the guy’s hand. Instead, he tried to stab a stuffed olive on his plate and failed, and the five of them watched as the round (fruit? vegetable? culinary tidbit?), in true Stiles Stilinski comedic effect, flew across the restaurant like a projectile, landing in someone’s water glass three tables over. His ears grew hot, but the feat earns him a golf-clap from Allison and a high-five from Scott, so he kept his composure mostly intact.

“I’m pretty sure I look better than half-bad on a regular basis,” he countered smoothly, hoping against hope that Jackson was actually just going on word-of-mouth by his fiancé and that he hadn’t actually _seen_ the article. Because, hello, that would imply that Jackson would peruse _gay werewolf magazines_. Any hopes of the subject being dropped flies out the metaphorical window, because now Lydia had taken the magazine out of her Chanel handbag, and Allison had made her grabby-hands motions, and _Jesus_ , they were eagerly flicking through the pages of this thing conspiratorially. In a fancy, family-orientated restaurant. Granted, they were all squished into one booth at the back, but Stiles didn’t want to have an unknowing wait-staff giving him the hairy eyeball for inappropriate reading material.

“Hey man, I think you look really good,” Scott said over his steak. Stiles looked down at his own, carefully separating the peas encroaching upon his mashed potatoes with the edge of his fork and trying not to blush. He hadn’t received the photos from Derek yet – somehow he wondered if he will anytime soon.

“You’re just saying that because you’re my best friend and contractually obligated to stroke my ego,” Stiles returned with a wry smile, and nudged Scott’s shoulder affectionately. He had always loved the way that Scott’s been cool with him, despite the years of (speaking very frankly) complete and utter emotional rollercoaster Stiles had when he had issues, from his mother’s death to (embarrassingly enough two years ago) the time Stiles realised he was more attracted to dudes than ladies. Scott, bless his soul, had patiently listened to him blubber on the phone for two hours, and then had come over with almost his entire body weight in Skittles and a bro-hug that almost snapped his spine in twain.

“Ohhh, Stiles, you look hot!” Allison giggled, tapping the photo of him at the end of the spread, the one with the collar of his shirt yanked down and gushing about how he could be the next big thing (which was very sweet, if somewhat unrealistic). Stiles… didn’t really know how to feel about that. Somehow, he wished that he’d been a little bit smoother, a little more impressive at the shoot, just so he could catch a specific photographer’s eye. Speaking of, he pulled his cell-phone out of his pocket and typed in a quick message to Derek, because why the hell not?

_**Mutiny at dinner – friends have pulled out the mag and r waving it in my face. Say im next Ryan Gosling or something** _

“Who are you messaging, sweetie?” Lydia purred into his ear, snatching the phone away before he could think it over and delete the message. She glanced at the text, and with a wicked grin hit ‘send’. “Ohhh, you’re flirting,” she whispered, nudging him with her shoulder as she thumbed through his phone, the rest of the dinner party busy with their own thing (mainly ogling the articles in the magazine and occasionally giggling). “Who’s the lucky…? Oh my god. Oh my _god_ , Stiles, _really? Derek Hale?_ ”

“Can you not, uh,” he stammered back, snatching the phone away and depositing it on the table-top with a _clack_. “I just. Nothing is happening, okay, we just had a bit of a text debate over the merits of video games, and then one time we had coffee. But only because I owed him a coffee. Because I spilt one all over him. By accident.” His rushed explanation wasn’t helped by the laser-beam evaluating stare that she was raking him with, trying to dredge up every bit of information possible from his offhand elucidation. And, of course, because the entire freaking world is against him, his phone beeped back with a message. Lydia snatched the phone off the table with superhuman speed, read the message and practically crowed in victory.

“Nothing’s happening, is it?” she leered (most unladylike, even though she still looked smokin’) and held out the phone so Stiles could see the text.

_**That’s hardly a fair comparison. You’re a lot better-looking than Ryan Gosling.** _

Stiles swore that, in that very moment, the entirety of his body’s blood pooled in his face, ears and neck. Lydia fisted a hand in the back of his collar and wrenched him bodily out of the booth (“Off to powder our bits!”), before she manhandled him around the bend and down the corridor where the restaurant’s bathrooms were situated. She then proceeded to shove him into a corner and crowd him between her arms, and really, Stiles would be impressed at both her strength and enormous presence for someone so small and dainty, that is, if he weren’t so _abjectly terrified_.

“You like him,” she stated, not even bothering with a freaking question mark on the end of her sentence. “You want to get all up in his business, and, if my memory serves me correctly from the last Christmas party he and I both attended, you have remarkable good taste. Now, don’t tell me this is nothing,” and she waved Stiles’ phone under his nose, “when he’s not only suffered through what must have been at least a couple of hours drinking coffee with you, but is _texting you back_ , meaning you haven’t short-fused his brain with your usual _you-_ ness, and he’s saying you’re _cuter than Ryan Gosling_. That is a _huge_ flag, Stiles. _Nobody_ is cuter than Ryan Gosling, okay?”

“You think he likes me?” Stiles asked, though the question came out more like a squeak than anything. It felt pretty inconceivable that someone like Derek would even be remotely interested in someone like, well, _him_ , but Lydia had never steered him wrong before, and she wouldn’t make things up, not things like this. “You actually think that he could possibly, conceivably be attracted to someone like me? When he spends all day taking photos of actual models who are way hotter-looking than I am?”

 “ _Ryan Fucking Gosling!_ ” Lydia all but shrieked at him (slightly hysterical), shaking him by the lapels of his shirt, and a bald man coming back from the bathrooms jumped nearly a foot in the air and hurried past them, avoiding any and all eye-contact. Their moment was interrupted by the cheery chirp of Stiles’ phone (again!), and both of them scrambled for the plastic device at the same time.

  _ **Would you like to meet up for coffee again? I have the photos on a USB device I’d like to give you – they’re too large to email altogether. Also my manager would like to enquire about a possible second shoot.**_

 “Say yes, say yes, say yes, if you don’t, I swear to god Stiles I will fire you from the agency and make your life a living hell.” Lydia hissed between her teeth, looking both delighted and murderous. Stiles was way ahead of her, already typing out a reply before his brain can, I dunno, _think_ , or something, and ruin whatever mojo he had going for him. He doesn’t even bother to roll his eyes at Lydia for changing Derek’s name on his contact list to ‘Derek McHotass’. It suited him, anyway.

 

. o O o .

 

They had decided to meet back at Angelini’s, and Derek was so supremely glad of that, because it was a familiar place for him and he knew where all the exits are in case of emergencies, like putting his foot so far into his mouth that his only option was to get the hell out of dodge, and fast. For the past week, Stiles’ face had been appearing in a number of increasingly graphic dreams, and Derek’s skin felt slightly too small for him. When Stiles had agreed to go out for another coffee, Derek had grinned like a loon all day, to the point where Isaac had dropped off a new ream of paper at his desk and promptly informed him that his smile was freaking everybody in the office out.

Come Saturday, and he’d arrived at the diner twenty minutes early because if he spent another minute in his apartment, he’d rip a hole in the wall with anticipation. With his bare hands. He spent the first ten minutes in his car, fiddling with the radio and then with his mobile phone, petting his pocket to ensure the USB drive was in there and wondering, distantly, if he couldn’t somehow ‘forget’ the drive at home and they’d have to meet up again. He quickly decided against the idea – he didn’t want to come across as forgetful, or worse, indifferent. When he could no longer stand it, he practically sprang out of his seat, locked the Camaro, and did his best to walk casually inside. Stiles was already at the table, and the fact that he was early too shouldn’t have made Derek’s chest feel like it was going to explode, but it did.

“Derek! Hey, great to see you again,” Stiles grinned, standing and shaking his hand, and all Derek could do was return the smile and handshake silently, because inside, he was having a conniption of joy. Stiles was happy to see him again. Oh my god, he was going to spend the entire time dissecting every word that came out of that beautiful, ridiculous mouth. He was going to go crazy before the coffee meeting (it definitely wasn’t a date, but what if it was? He didn’t think he could handle that) was through. Derek ordered coffees for the both of them, feeling his stomach flip a little in response to Stiles’ grateful grin when the hot chocolate was set on the table by a wait-staff.

“Here are the photos from the shoot,” Derek slid the USB device over the table, watching it disappear beneath Stiles’ fingers and trying not to look like an absolute creeper.  He took a sip of his coffee to bolster his nerve. “About the job – my uncle thought the spread you did was really good, and he was impressed with the quality the photos.”

“Well, I had a great photographer,” Stiles interjected, chuckling behind the rim of his cup, and Derek swore to god he almost dribbled a mouthful of coffee down the front of his shirt. _Smooth._

“Oh, I don’t know, my model was pretty easy on the eyes too,” he replied, and counted it as a personal victory when Stiles didn’t look up from his drink, but the tips of his ears went bright red. Feeling his confidence boosted, he continued, “The magazine does a Christmas-style spread with the models that are more popular, and he wanted to know if you’d be interested. Obviously, you’d get paid again, and I’d be in charge of the shoot, so you’d have someone familiar to work with. It’s in about a month or so – Are you interested?”

“Yeah… yeah, that sounds totally fine,” Stiles nodded, fiddling with the handle of his cup. “I mean, it was a bit intimidating doing that first shoot, but I think that if I was doing it with you again it’d be… fine…” Derek nodded back, having a violent, internal battle to keep his brain away from mental images that Stiles’ words conjured. He wasn’t having much luck, not when Stiles was literally sitting less than an arm-span away from him, and looking the way he looked. And, god, the way he _smelled_ – like paper and books, and sweet, milky tea, caramelised sugar and grass and the outdoors. Derek was hard-pressed to not simply devour him then and there, clamber over the table and kiss him breathless, the possibility of getting arrested for public indecency be damned.

“Look, to be honest,” he began, settling the cup down. What exactly was he going to say, though? That he was madly attracted to someone he’d met a mere handful of times? That his wolf was desperately trying to claw his way out to mark the youth, to show him that they belonged together? That sounded preposterous, even to him. “I didn’t really come here to talk shop. I just really needed to have a coffee and talk to someone who wasn’t either from my office or somebody whose head I wanted to rip off. And besides,” he took another sip of coffee and quirked a corner of his lip upwards, “I wanted to hear some more misadventures of your friend Greenberg in class.”

Stiles’ smile turned into something completely different from all the other ones he’d seen before – it became small and genuinely pleased, bordering on shy, and Derek meticulously committed it to memory. A half-beat of a pause, and then Stiles was launching into another hilarious account over the debacle Greenberg had created in Harris’ class, complete with gesticulations that almost tipped the sugar bowl over his lap. The conversation morphed into something else entirely after a while, especially when Derek joined in on the worst holiday experiences and recounted the time his family had gone crabbing, and Laura had stuck a crab down the back of his shorts and he’d cried for a solid hour. Their chat was easy, comfortable, and Derek couldn’t remember a time when he’d talked to someone so effortlessly. Not since before Laura moved away, that was for sure.

They spent almost three hours in Angelini’s again, and by the time they stepped outside the sun had set and the street-lamps were starting to light up. “Listen, there’s this place down the block that does really good Indian food,” Stiles said, hands shoved deep in his jeans pockets and his words coming out a little faster than normal. “Their butter chicken and garlic naan combo is literally the food of the gods.”

“I could eat,” Derek agreed, and smiled at the way Stiles’ face lit up like a thousand-watt globe.

Oh, he was completely ruined for anybody else.

 

. o O o .

 

“Okay, so, hypothetically speaking, what would you do if I told you there was this guy?” Stiles began, shifting awkwardly in his seat and nibbling the corner of a piece of toast. “And I didn’t think it would be anything, but like, we’ve been texting pretty much every day and we had coffee twice and we’ve also gone out to dinner so…?”

“Just make sure to have him around to dinner if you decide to get serious.” his father replied, not even looking up from his newspaper as he shovelled in another spoon of hi-fibre bran. “I’ll acquaint him with my service Glock.”

“Dad! _Jesus Christ!_ ”

 

. o O o .

 

“How’s that cutie you’re totally gaga for, Der?” Erica asked sweetly, sashaying across the corridor and depositing his paperwork in a neat stack on his desk. Derek merely grunted and shoved a file of completed forms at her, because he’d had a killer headache all day, and Stiles had a major group assignment due at the end of the week, so they hadn't been able to text as frequently. Not that he was pouting about it, because _Derek wasn’t a pouter_.

“Oh, put on your big boy pants, Pouty McPouterson,” she replied, tossing her impeccable blonde locks over a shoulder in a move that was more for dramatic flair than anything. “I was just coming over to tell you that Boyd got in contact with someone from the museum who was looking for a photographer for their exhibit. Thought you might be interested, since you’re currently trying to get into Indiana Jones Jr.’s trousers, and this would be a sure-fire way to score some brownie points. But you know what? I think I’ll just tell my boo that you’re way too busy brooding to take advantage of this great opportunity practically served to you on a silver platter.”

“Erica,” Derek gritted out, because this was his life now, having to appease the tempers of spiteful women who loved to watch him squirm. “Have I ever told you that you are a living goddess of beauty and compassion, and that I’d be forever lost without your charitable benevolence?”

“Damn right you would,” she huffed in return, and went to find Boyd.

 

. o O o .

 

“I knew you’d be back,” Lydia hummed, examining her nails with feigned disinterest. After the debacle at dinner, Stiles had expressly messaged her and told her not to expect him at their weekly lunch date, because damn it, he had his pride, and he was so totally giving her the cold shoulder. And yet, here she was, sitting at their regular table while Stiles flailed into his usual seat opposite her, not even a minute late. Damn her for knowing him so well.

“Yes, I’m back,” he acquiesced, “Back like the veritable bad smell you thought would go away when you threw out that container of Beef Lo Mein that mysteriously appeared in the back of your refrigerator and had been sitting there for a questionably long time.”

“You’ve had a lot of time to think about that analogy,” she confirmed, offhandedly ordering her usual chicken pasta. “A little too much time. But anyway, moving on to the important things, and that is, the fact that I was right. I’m always right, but I was especially right about Derek Hale. Right?”

“Right.” Stiles nodded, his burger ordered, feeling as though they had just used up their day’s quota on the word ‘right’ in that last minute. “Except that I don’t know if he actually _like-_ likes me, or if he’s just wanting to hang out and be buddies after work or something.”

“Do you like the guy?” she asked, the softness in her voice betraying the put-off look on her face.

“Oh my _god_ , Lyds, you have _no_ idea.” He scrabbled his fingers through his hair, thought fortunately it already looked like he’d been pulled through a hedge backwards, so it didn’t really make him look any worse. “He’s this ridiculously chiselled, Adonis-like man who looks like he just stepped off the cover of a GQ Magazine, and he’s got this sultry, brooding look going on, but then he opens his mouth and is just so freaking _adorable_. Like, he talks about baseball and how much he likes pizza and how he wants to be a pro photographer and it just _kills_ me because I want to reach across whatever surface is separating us and make out with his stupidly hot designer stubble and adorably big white bunny teeth and eyebrows!”

“So we can safely establish that you are attracted to him, then,” Lydia confirmed, sipping her mango smoothie and pointedly ignoring the fact that her quasi-gay BFF just stated he wanted to make out with someone’s eyebrows. “And anybody who’s willing to spend time with you of their own volition is clearly invested in something – no offense.” Stiles’ withering look didn’t seem to perturb the strawberry blonde, especially since their food arrived, and he looked upon his cheeseburger like a man looking upon the face of god. “So,” she continued, spearing a piece of chicken onto her fork with vindictive purpose, “why don’t you ask him out?”

“You’re seriously suggesting I do that, because it’s so easy to do, right?” Stiles shot back, except that his mouth was full of cheeseburger, so it came out more of a “Yrfghhhh shrfrgh shhhfsuuuh, rffrh?” He took a moment to swallow his mouthful and compose himself, before venturing again. “This guy is serious perfection here, and it’s freaking me out, because I actually really really _really_ like him. Everything about him is impressive – his muscles, his job, even his family that lives in New York.”

“He spoke to you about Laura?” Lydia interrupted, her voice a sharp snap. Stiles’ fingers stilled over a handful of fries.

“Yeah. Well, not much, but he mentioned his older sister was living there, and I know his uncle owns the magazine.” He wiped his hand on a napkin and folded his hand into a loose fist, resting against the top of the table. “Lydia, what aren’t you telling me? What’s so important about his family?”

“Stiles,” she sighed, pushing her glass away and leaning her forearms on the table. He knew this stance well – it was her ‘this is important shit, so listen closely’ posture. “Do you remember that huge fire that happened all those years ago on the edge of town? That really big house on the edge of the forest that burned down?”

“Yeah, of course,” he replied offhandedly. He’d only been a kid back then, but he remembered it had been about a year after his mother died, his dad still wrecked from the strain of losing her. He’d come home late that evening, smelling of smoke and ash, and had hugged Stiles until he thought his bones would break. “What does the Hale fire have to do with – oh. Oh my god. Holy shit. Derek _Hale_.”

“Yes, Derek Hale. His sister Laura and uncle Peter were the only ones that survived the fire. Laura moved away really soon after that, and Derek went and studied before joining Peter’s magazine.” She stirred the smoothie with her straw, pursing her crimson lips. “Derek’s a pretty closed-off guy – the only reason I know this is because Jackson’s father was one of the lawyers that helped negotiate the insurance claim. He keeps to himself and never really talks about his family. Which is why him mentioning Laura is a pretty big freaking deal, Stiles. He never talks about his family, ever, so even if he just mentioned her in passing, it means something bigger than just casual conversation.”

“Holy shit,” Stiles repeated, his voice hollow, leaning his elbows on the table and burying his fingers in his hair. “I didn’t know. Why the hell didn’t those last names click? Wow, I feel like an ultra-douche right now. Thank god I didn’t say anything stupid in front of him.” He stared at the plate of food in front of him for a long moment, and then glanced up and met Lydia’s eyes.

“I want to tell him how I feel. I know we’ve only known each other a little while, but I want to see if he feels the same way. See if maybe, I dunno, we can’t start something.”

“’Atta boy,” Lydia grinned, petting his arm. “Now, let’s plan a wardrobe makeover for you to hook him completely.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TWO CHAPTERS IN ONE WEEK HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE
> 
> I want to spend an entire week in bed sleeping but I can't. Sadface.
> 
> Thanks so much for all the support as usual! You folks keep me going strong! 8'D
> 
> With [My Tumblr](http://yijitumbles.tumblr.com/) I will stop~ the pain~

Derek had to face the stark reality that he’s more than just attracted to Stiles Stilinski. It had been over two weeks now since that night they had dinner, and he was literally feeling out of his mind with restlessness. His wolf was feeling it too, affecting his mood daily, which in turn found him in the evenings at home, watching television morosely with glassy eyes, nursing a beer that won’t affect him in the slightest. He didn’t just want Stiles, he wanted to  _be_  with Stiles.

He remembered his father’s words, when he was younger – about finding someone you love, about finding your  _mate_. His father had always seemed so knowledgeable, a fountain of wisdom that he could access at any time. He remembered his words, how he’d sat him down one day when he was fifteen and told him that, when that day came, he’d know for sure, because he and his inner wolf would both want the same thing. When Kate had come into his life, he’d been so stubborn – he’d lusted after her and, like a fool, had allowed her to string him along. His wolf had never liked her, its hackles always tense in her company, but he’d overridden that base knowledge with the dismissive attitude that his wolf didn’t _own_  him, and he was free to do as he wished. To him, Kate had been an addiction, and a damaging one at that.

Boy, what a mistake she had been.

Stiles was different. Around him, his wolf wanted to yip playfully and whine needily, beg to be noticed and to possess him entirely. And Derek himself, his human side – well, he  _wanted_. After Kate and the fire, he hadn't let himself want anything for so long, but the young man was so easy to be around, as comfortable as a well-loved blanket. When they were together, Derek’s shoulders relaxed, he smiled more. He felt at ease, and, dare he say it, happy. He hadn’t felt this content in a long time. Derek couldn’t remember the last time someone texting him made him feel so giddy, but he knew full well that he couldn’t let it go. He didn’t want to let it go, not now that he’s experienced it. But Stiles was a human, and he still didn’t know that much about him, or, more importantly, if Stiles felt the same way towards him.

He desperately wished his parents were still alive. His father would take him out to the lake at the back of the property, spend the afternoon fishing and telling him about the grand gestures he’d done in the past to woo his mother, and how it’d taken so long he’d almost given up, but had kept coming back time and time again. His mother, baking fresh brownies and muffins in their kitchen and getting flour all over the counters, would smile in that way that was only reserved for their father, a secretive, shy curve of her full lips. She used to laugh cheekily and recall how their father had always been so  _persistent_ , and she’d known from the get-go that they would be together. When Laura, busy mixing the batter, asked why she’d never replied to their father’s advances, she laughed in reply and planted her hands against her hips. “I wanted to see if he was serious, if he was willing to put in the effort.”

He wished they were still around. His dad would probably take him out fishing, or hunting in the forest, now that he was an adult. They’d probably be sharing beers instead of cola, ribbing each other in that playful way that a parent and an adult child can. His mother would have probably really liked Stiles, asking him to help set the table and making him look at each and every one of Derek’s baby photos. His parents would have been so damn happy to know that Derek had found someone.

Fuck, he missed them.

Derek started the new working week with a single-minded determination. He was going to ask Stiles out, on an actual,  _proper_  date. He doesn’t know how Boyd managed to do it, but his gig with the museum actually turned out to be pretty cool. They were doing a small exhibit on Egyptian artefacts, and had requested someone to photograph their relics at the venue for a newspaper piece, as well as their fliers. Derek had jumped at the chance, and after two days of solid work (blessedly away from his desk and the mountain of paperwork that seems to be growing exponentially) he found himself with more photos for his portfolio, a pay check that he couldn’t really complain about, and two free tickets to their exhibit.

Of course, he’d offered them to Erica and Boyd first thing when he’d gotten back to the office, it was only polite. Erica had made an exasperated sound and flung her eyes heavenward, praying for strength as she dug into her lunch.

“Why would we set up this amazing chance for you to get with Cutie Patootie and then ask you to give us the tickets?” she said, sounding affronted around a giant mouthful of her foot-long Italian Meatball sub. “Don’t be ridiculous. Plus, we’ve got plans already.” Boyd was nodding beside her, his face Buddha-like in its unperturbed composure. “We’re going bowling!” Knowing the two of them, it would probably be a massacre of wooden pins, intermixed with heavy bouts of public making out that definitely would not be acceptable in a family-friendly communal venue. Derek made a mental note to never go bowling with them.

That night, Derek got home and laid the tickets flat against his kitchen counter, and then proceeded to stare at them for a full twenty minutes. He had a violent internal battle with his emotions – he desperately wanted to talk to Stiles and ask him out, but he was still hesitant. Which was ridiculous, because he has had  _years_  of people practically flinging themselves at him, and the disastrous relationship he’s had with Kate notwithstanding (which was primarily a frenzied hookup), he has never attempted to woo someone before. Aside from the romantic comedies he sometimes caught on cable, he had no idea how a relationship is even supposed to start. His idols of long-standing, solid relationships, his parents, had always seemed so perfectly in-synch and faultlessly suited for each other that it hadn’t occur to him that they ever had to make any type of effort.

“Jesus Christ, Derek, man up and get a hold of yourself,” he growled, grabbing his mobile phone and tapping out a message. He didn’t even agonise over his words, or reword separate drafts, just typed on the fly and sent the message off before he can overthink things, or worse, decide not to send it at all.

_**How is the essay going?** _

That seemed like a safe start and segue into the conversation, he thought. He remembered Stiles had a big project due, and he was feeling so nervous about asking him out that maybe he could ease into the subject. As soon as the message has sent, he put the phone down on the counter and strode off, purposeful, grabbing from the coffee table a book he’d bought a while back that he’d been dying to read for a while. He then scoured the fridge for food, and, not finding anything palatable, ordered a pizza online from his local store (for delivery, because he wanted to be at home  _and_  keep his phone free all evening). He then hunkered down on the end of the couch and cracked open the book, willing with all his might to get absorbed in it because he knows that if he doesn’t, he would spend the rest of his night checking his cell every minute and a half for a reply.

It was only minutes later that Derek almost literally tore his coffee table in half in a mad dash across his apartment to pick up the phone, because it was _ringing_.

 

. o O o .

 

It was a damn long week, and he almost didn’t survive it, but Stiles was in a good mood. Scratch that, he was in a  _great_  mood. Fan _tastic_  mood. He was just about ready to bust out the thesaurus and go to town on the synonyms for his mood, because he  _could_.

His paper was finished. It took him almost forever to get the research compiled and properly indexed, and his citations and bibliography took him almost the same amount of time that his actual dissertation took to be written, but it didn’t matter because it was  _done_. He was wrung out and exhausted beyond belief and had spent the last four days hopped up on sugar and unhealthy carbohydrates, but it didn’t matter that he hasn’t showered in two days, or that he had gone over the damn thing four times with a fine-toothed comb, double-checking for grammatical errors, spelling mistakes or wrong citations. It didn’t matter, because his inkjet had just finished printing the last page of his seventy-page thesis. He would print off another copy, and in the morning he’d take them down to Office Depot and get them spiral-bound. And after that, he just needed to hand it in to the professor in both digital and hard copies, and then he was free. His mid-semester break was right after that and his assignment was finished  _early_  for once, and he was free  _for a whole fucking week_.

He celebrated with a scalding hot shower, staying under the spray until the water began running cold and he’d managed to wash away the funk of multiple days being shut in his room had caused. He washed his hair, brushed his teeth, flossed, and, on a whim, even used that fucking moisturiser Allison had bought him, because he was feeling like he needed to shed an entire layer of Stiles to celebrate his return to the land of the living. Plus his sheets were washed and fresh from yesterday morning (he hadn't slept in his bed last night, rather, he’d fallen asleep scrunched up in his computer chair), so he was looking forward to nothing more than slipping between clean, crisp sheets and having a grand old snooze.

He was in his sweatpants and t-shirt for bed by the time he got back to his room, and the first thing he noticed is that the screen on his cell phone was lit up with a message. Completely expecting it to be from Scott, he did a double-take when he sees the name  _Derek McHotass_  on the display (thank you, Lydia). The message was simple enough, asking about his paper, and usually he’d be more than happy to type up a reply straight away. But his chest was jackhammering from the last conversation he’d had with Lydia about Derek, and he was still cresting the high of a job well-done on his assignment. Combined, the two emotions made a dangerous mix, and before he knew what he was doing, he had pressed the ‘call’ button and was holding his cell up to his ear, actually ringing him. Stiles was  _ringing_  Derek, and if he hadn’t been sitting down on the edge of his bed, he was sure his knees would have given way, because the phone was actually  _ringing_ , and when did Stiles get the balls to make the first move?

_“Hello?”_

Derek’s voice came through the line slightly tinny, but nevertheless made Stiles’ heart somersault in his ribcage.

“Derek! Hi, I hope I’m not ringing too late, or interrupting you, or anything,” he said right off the bat, wanting to smack himself in the head for sounding so completely clueless, and for the way his voice has suddenly taken on a breathless sort of tone.

 _“No, you’re fine,”_  Derek replied, his voice smooth and deep. God, did Derek even know how amazing his voice sounded? It was like chocolate for the ears, liquefied sex, and dammit, his face was already feeling hot just thinking about it.  _“I hadn't heard from you in a while,”_  he went on to say, _“I remember you telling me some time back about a thesis you were working on, I wanted to make sure you were still alive.”_

“Yeah, just barely,” he chuckled back, suddenly utterly at ease. Strange, how Derek always seemed to make him nervous as anything and then completely comfortable at the flick of a switch. Maybe it was the warmth in his voice that he could hear through the grainy reception of the telephone. “I actually just finished it tonight. It seriously almost killed me, but I’m so glad it’s done. All I have to do is print out a second copy and get them bound, and then I’m home free for a week. It’s mid-semester break on Monday, so I planned to spend it getting better acquainted with my Xbox and my bed.”

 _“That’s really great,”_  came the reply, and Stiles could genuinely hear the smile in it. It warmed him through, and he was glad that he was on the other end of a telephone line and not standing in front of the man, because he just  _knew_  he had a ridiculously soppy, fond look all over his face. Damn… he was head over heels for the guy, and it had only just dawned on him now.

They talk for a long while. Initially, Stiles was wary that they were still new to each other, and this was their very first phone conversation (that he initiated himself, holy shit, he still couldn’t get over that). But Derek had always been so easy to talk to, and he told Stiles about the thesis he wrote when he studied, how the office supply store near his university couldn’t bind the pages of his project because the industrial ring-binder machine had broken down. In a streak of bad luck, they’d also run out of smaller do-it-yourself home ring binders, and nowhere else did it. They both laughed when Derek told him that his flatmate Irene (an art major) and he had stayed up all night punching holes in his copies of the paper by hand, and had bound the pages using scraps of lace and ribbon from one of her old projects. He’d handed his thesis in just in time, and his professor had raised an eyebrow at the colourful binding, but said nothing. His marks had been good, but he’d only been able to remember how much he hated hole-punches from that entire experience after that.

 _“Hey Stiles,”_  Derek said, just as they came off the end of another story about each other’s hells researching for their respective theses,  _“Have you heard about the exhibit at the museum going on?”_

“Ugh, yeah,” he replied, feeling put out. “The  _‘Mysteries of the Afterlife’_  Egyptian exhibit, right? I only just found out it was happening, but by the time I did all the tickets sold out for it. It’s like, only on for a couple of weeks, which is ridiculous, and I totally begged my Egyptology professor to wrangle something, since she’s got contacts and all, but nada. Zip. Zilch. Zero. Nothing. And freaking  _Greenberg_  got tickets because he’s a jerk.” Okay, maybe Greenberg wasn’t a jerk, but Stiles felt  _so much manpain_  at having missed those tickets – it’s one thing to study ancient artefacts from the pages of a textbook, but quite another to observe them in real life from a distance of mere inches.

 _“I got two tickets for the exhibit,“_  Derek said, following a slight pause after Stiles’ outburst.

“You what?” he answered back, because he was sure that he heard that Derek had gotten tickets for the exhibit like some sort of man from an Old Spice ad. Either that, or all the water he’s accidentally gotten in his ears from his year-long shower had somehow gotten lodged in his ear canal, mixed with earwax, and had caused him a hearing impairment.

_“I did some photography for the museum for the exhibit, and they gave me two tickets to go see it. And you’re the only person I know who’s interested in it.”_

Derek’s voice sounded very even, almost a little bit too much so, and Stiles couldn’t seem to wrap his head around the fact that not only did Derek have  _two tickets_ , but he was possibly swinging one his way. He hated the fact that Derek’s tone was so calm and composed, because he couldn’t read exactly what’s going on. But knowing Derek, his face would be a mask of impassiveness too – he had to give it to the guy, he would make a  _great_ poker player.

“So, you’re asking…” he trailed off, not quite sure how to finish that sentence. He was sitting ramrod-straight on the very edge of his comforter, hardly daring to believe any of this might be happening. Calm down, he thought to himself, don’t have any expectations for any sort of situation, and then you won’t feel disappointment when it doesn’t happen.

_“I’m asking if you if you’re free this Saturday. And you want to go see this exhibit. With me.”_

Derek’s words were coming out this side of clipped, as if impatient, but Stiles was the master of awkwardness. Nay, he was the  _inventor of nervousness_ and he  _knew_  when someone was freaking out, because hello, that was his life 80% of the time. Derek was asking Stiles to go see this thing he  _really wanted to see_ , and was  _nervous_  about it. The mere notion of it did nothing less than short-circuit his brain, and he opened and closed his mouth a few times, not unlike a fish, too stunned to answer.

It kind of sounded like a date. Which, _no_ , it couldn’t be? Could it? No. _No._ Yes? Maybe? NO. And then he realized just how long it had been since Derek had stopped speaking, and oh boy, he’d just created this uncomfortably long silence while Derek waited for an answer, because his brain had decided to have its meltdown then and there.

“Yes!” He blurted the word out like he had the winning answer on Jeopardy. Shit, too enthusiastic-sound, Stiles, pull it together and dial it down a few notches, for Christ’s sake. “I mean – yeah, I have nothing on Saturday. Count me in. Totally and utterly, two-hundred percent in, which, alright, is statistically impossible, but dude, wow, yes, still totally in!”

On the other end of the line, Derek chuckled, warm and low, and told him he would message him the details once he has his hours ironed out. Stiles could barely hear him over the thundering of his pulse, and made a mental note to ring Lydia immediately after getting on the phone and asking, no,  _begging_  her for advice.

 

. o O o .

 

He was sure that if he hadn't been a werewolf with much better body-temperature control than the regular human, his palms would be dripping with nervous sweat. As it was, though, he was feeling only slightly warmer than usual, and trying not to shift on his feet nervously. He was standing in front of the museum’s modest entrance, wearing a damned  _polo sweater_  because it was his only nice garment that was actually clean. He cursed himself repeatedly for not doing laundry that week and thinking that he actually had something to wear that was both dirt-free and relatively fashionable enough to wear on a date.

Because this was a date. This was totally a date. It was a Saturday night, they were two young people with a (hopefully) mutual attraction in each other, and they were going to be together at the same venue, observing things that they had a mutual interest in. Well, to be perfectly honest, he was going to this exhibit because he was interested in the  _other individual_  who was interested in the exhibit. Not to say he wasn’t fascinated by ancient Egyptian artefacts, but he had already spent two days photographing the more impressive ones from multiple angles, and, to be fair, he was much more captivated in the constellations of moles splayed across Stiles’ pale skin than anything the museum had to offer.

Point is, he’d managed to ask Stiles out because, during their telephone conversation, he’d gotten the impression that perhaps his feelings weren’t just one-sided. Even though Stiles was a human, and, in turn, should be fairly easy to read, Derek couldn’t quite figure him out. When they were around each other, Stiles’ heartbeat always seemed slightly elevated, but he had previously mentioned that he used to take Adderall, and Derek wasn’t exactly sure if long years of exposure to that specific medication could have those kind of side-effects. He really had to stop over-thinking things, but he’d decided that tonight was the night that he made his feelings clear to the younger man, and see if maybe something couldn’t evolve from their easy friendship. The tickets for the display were burning a hole in his trouser pocket, and it took all of his self-control not to crush them with his fingers.

He was surprised when Stiles jogged up to him standing at the foot of the museum stairs, even though he was ten minutes early to their meeting time. Even so, he couldn’t suppress the ridiculously happy smile that stretched across his face.

“Hey,” Stiles said, his face bright and his voice breathless, which, in turn, took his own breath away.

“You’re early,” he returned, because he was an idiot who couldn’t keep his mouth shut, and, of course, the first thing he had to do was point out that he was even earlier, and therefore, probably too eager-looking. But Stiles just laughed, a tinkling, melodic sound, and Derek just smiled even wider as his wolf yipped with unabashed joy. The younger man was wearing nice-fitting dress jeans and a button-down, which was strangely formal for him and yet suited him to a T. It was very, very difficult to keep his mind focused, especially when his imagination was trying to mentally undress Stiles then and there.

“I’m not even going to point out the glaring flaw in your observation,” Stiles replied, tucking his own hands in his pockets. His smile was genuine, a little bit shy, and Derek was almost shocked when he heard that the pulse of Stiles’ heartbeat was slightly more elevated than usual. It bolstered his confidence enough to cock his head towards the wooden doors of the museum.

“Shall we?” he offered. Stiles ducked his head, that pleased, shy smile on his face again, the small one that Derek had begun to think of as his own. And, as he fished the tickets out of his pocket, he wondered if he could last the next couple of hours without blurting something terribly embarrassing in the middle of an exhibit full of strangers. At the door, he noticed that Stiles took three pamphlets of the display rather than one, each leaflet packed with his snapshots of the relics, and very carefully handled them to avoid scrunching the glossy paper.

They got through the display a lot easier than Derek had expected them to. Stiles was enraptured with every single item on show, and his enthusiasm was catching. He couldn’t stop himself from grinning when Stiles was talking a million miles a minute about the embalming procedures of mummification, or the symbolic double crown of the  _pschent_  that was, as he discovered, the combination of the two crowns from Upper and Lower Egypt, the  _hedjet_  and the  _deshret_. Stiles knew as much about Ancient Egypt as anybody Derek had ever met, and the sheer joy on his face as he examined a jewelled pectoral and bracelet set is almost blinding. The item that caught Stiles’ eye the most is an intricate jewelled vase set with stones and repoussé gold, depicting his favourite goddess, Maat, upon its surface. Derek had taken plenty of photos of that vase, and it was a highlight piece of the collection, occupying the entire back page of the booklet. Perhaps he’d get the best photo of it printed as a poster and give it to Stiles as a gift. If it made Stiles smile as widely as it did just then, he’d be willing to print out the entire collection and wallpaper his house with it.

They went out to dinner, afterwards. Nothing fancy, just a small Italian place nearby that does great ravioli. Stiles, still giddy from the exhibit, described with avid hand gestures how the Ancient Egyptians used to wear wigs over shaved heads, and wore discs of perfumed animal fat and beeswax to scent their skin throughout the day. Derek had never been one for history, but the way that Stiles described it was beyond fascinating, it was almost fun. He found himself asking questions, which delighted Stiles and were returned with contented answers.

“Recently, there’ve also been some discoveries in Giza and Thebes that suggest the existence of  _werewolves_ , even back then!” he said in breathless excitement as he took a bite of his slice of garlic bread, and Derek almost choked on a chunk of crust. He’d completely forgotten about the fact that werewolves were still looked upon negatively by parts of society. Suddenly, he was gripping his knees beneath the table with almost crushing force, wondering if Stiles was one of those people who were averse to his kind.

“So do you… know much about werewolves?” he asked, taking a gulp of water to try and dislodge the sudden, giant lump that’s formed in his throat. Silently, he offered up a furious prayer to all of the Egyptian gods they visited no less than a half hour ago, bargaining that he took some pretty decent shots of their vestiges, and they should be grateful enough for that to just do him a solid and make Stiles one of those people who didn’t seem to care, at the very least.

“I know a little about their history,” Stiles continued, mopping up the bolognaise sauce with his bread. “Mostly we studied the early European folklore, and then moved on through the ages and touched a bit on the different perceptions of them in various countries. Ridiculously fascinating stuff, really, especially when they were officially recognized in the early seventeenth century as an actual race, rather than just myth.”

“What do you… think of them?” he asked haltingly, because he could feel the back of his neck prickling with nervous sweat. He pushed on to the revelation he’s been dreading to say. “You do know I’m a werewolf, don’t you?”

“I pretty much guessed,” Stiles replied, not even pausing between bites, and Derek was so astounded and knocked back for six that he was stunned into silence. Stiles went on. “It’s not hard to figure out – I mean, you work for a werewolf-orientated magazine, and your ridiculously good looks practically scream old blood. To be honest, I don’t really care much for the people who are anti-werewolf. I mean, my best friend Scott, he’s a Were. He got turned when he was ten, after this disastrous camping trip with his dad went pear-shaped, and then the metaphorical plop hit the fan, and there was a messy divorce and yada yada yada. Werewolves are just like regular people, for the most part, except they’re a little stronger and cooler, and have a slightly hairy problem once a month.” He leaned his elbow on the table and looks at Derek with his chin tilted up, an imperiously unimpressed look on his face. “Why? Did you think I was going to be some religious, crazy zealot who was going to damn you to hell for being what you are? A sixteenth-century-minded misinformed crazy, who lumps werewolves in with other immoral heretics who dare to write with their left hands?”

“No, not at all,” Derek laughed, his chest swelling with relief. “I just – in my line of work, I have to put up with a lot of crap from people who aren’t as… obliging as yourself, or others. It gets tiresome sometimes, having people dislike you for simply being born different.” He wasn’t sure when he became so comfortable around Stiles to be so frank about his emotions, but he was honestly not complaining. He was just so relieved that the guy he likes wasn’t against what he is that his head was swimming – he just wanted to reach across the table and kiss him senseless. He restrained himself, but only just. The phrase ‘ridiculously good-looks’ was bouncing around in his head like a bouncy ball on speed.

“To be honest,” Stiles chuckled, pushing his pasta around the plate with his fork, “When Scott got turned, and he figured out how to live with the whole wolf thing, I made him repeatedly extend and retract his fangs. I told him it was all for the sake of science, for a school project I was doing, but I just thought it was really cool that he could do that. It was only after a week that he realised we were in the same class, and nobody had to write a project about werewolves.”

Derek couldn’t help but laugh uproariously at that, something that was just so _Stiles_. They stayed at the restaurant until they were one of the last tables, and the staff members were hovering around, waiting for the final four tables to leave so they could put the chairs up and finish for the evening. They split the bill, and Derek walked Stiles to his Jeep, parked only a block away from his Camaro. The air was surprisingly balmy and sweet despite being mid-October, not even cold enough for a coat, and Derek decided it’d been the perfect evening spent in perfect company.

“Thank you for coming to the exhibit with me tonight,” he smiled as they reach the Jeep. Stiles shuffled his feet and pulled his hands out of his pockets, fiddling with the keys.

“No, thank you for inviting me along. It was… wow, I can’t even begin to express how awesome it was. I never thought I’d be able to see it, not when the tickets sold out so fast, but it was truly something, you know? I really appreciate it, Derek, thank you so much.” The little smile made an appearance again, and Derek couldn’t help himself any longer. He took a step forward and hooked a finger into Stiles’ hands, stilling the movement of the jangling keys.

“Stiles,” he murmured, unable to look away from the youth’s eyes that, in the street lamp’s light, have turned into molten gold. He swallowed heavily, and soldiered on. “I have something I wanted to say. I didn’t land the photography job at the museum by chance. One of my workmates, he found out about it, and I got him to pull some strings for me and get me hired, because I wanted to invite you to it. I wanted to spend more time with you.” He heard Stiles’ breath hitch, and, for the first time since he’d known him, Stiles was completely immobile in front of him – it was kind of freaking him out. A lot. “What I’m trying to say is –”

“Oh my god,” Stiles moaned, sounding completely and utterly pained, his face looking beyond distressed as he snatched his hands away. “There is no way this is happening. No freaking way.”

Derek felt an entire cinderblock drop in his stomach, absolutely gutted, but before he could so much as shift a muscle, Stiles’ hands were shoving his keys back into his pocket and cupping his face, and suddenly his lips were on Derek’s. It was a little awkward and clumsy, because they were half in the dark and he wasn’t expecting it, but it was better than anything he’d ever imagined it to be. Stiles’ lips were soft under his own, plush and yielding, and moved against his as though they were made for each other. Giving in to the sensation, Derek settled his hands on Stiles’ hips and leaned him back against the Jeep, and they spent a good few minutes after that decidedly not talking, but rather, finding the best angles to slide their mouths against one another’s. He kept the kiss gentle and dry, because he was sure that, at the slightest hint of tongue, the last of his restraint would evaporate and he’d probably do something that could very well land him in jail for public indecency.

“Oh god,” Stiles whispered, voice cracking through the second word as they finally come apart, lips red and swollen from kissing and his eyes unfocused. “I’ve wanted to do that for  _ages_. You have no freaking idea, dude, no idea whatsoever. I was scared shitless that I’d make a wrong move.”

“I don’t think that’d be possible with you,” Derek smirked back, because  _oh yeah_ , he could totally justify feeling cocky. “After all, it’s been near impossible to get you out of my head since the first day I met you at my studio.”

 “Sweet merciful Grilled-Cheesus,” Stiles sighed, pulling Derek back against him, “Come back here, I want to kiss you until I pass out from asphyxiation.”

“I’ll try to make sure you don’t,” he chuckled, and then there are grinning lips on his own, and there wasn’t much room for rational thought after that.

 

. o O o .

  

Stiles managed to get into his car twenty minutes later, and to drive himself safely back to his house.

 He spent a ridiculous amount of time in the shower when he finally did get home, but felt completely justified when he slid into bed that night that his sheets won’t suffer from it.

 

. o O o .

  

 _“So you’re sure you want to appear in the Christmas spread then?”_  Peter Hale’s voice came through the telephone on speaker.  _“It’s your last chance, you know. If you’re a no-show again, it’s your final strike, and we’ll tear your contract from our company up. We refuse to work with unprofessional models, after all.”_

 “Oh, I wouldn’t miss it for the world, Peter,” Jeremy replied smugly, flicking through the latest issue and scowling at the artistic photographs of the youth adorning the spread. “After all, how could I miss an opportunity to work with gorgeous Derek again?”

  _“Just try and keep it professional between the two of you – I know for a fact that Derek isn’t entirely comfortable with the… attentions you lavish on him.”_  Peter chuckled mirthlessly, his voice slightly distorted from the phone line before abruptly hanging up.

 “Rude. Like uncle, like nephew,” Jeremy huffed to himself. “And here I thought Derek would actually miss me. Well, he’ll see just what he’s missing at the shoot, I can assure him of that.”


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THINGS ARE HAPPENING BAPOW!
> 
> As always, you can find me [on Tumblr.](http://yijitumbles.tumblr.com/)
> 
> YOU GUYS ARE BEAUTIFUL LIKE A BEAUTIFUL SLICE OF PIZZA

Stiles was pretty (if not definitely) certain that he was hallucinating, or had somehow crossed the planes of time and space and travelled to an alternate universe, because Derek Hale, freaking _gorgeous photographer and face of god Derek Hale_  had kissed him. The fact that it had happened two days ago still hadn’t seemed to hit the fact home, because he was sitting in class spacing out about the ridiculously hot makeout session they’d had against his Jeep.

To be perfectly honest, Stiles hadn’t expected anything from that evening. Always thoroughly disappointed in life, he’d built the best defence mechanism against the dashing of his expectations – go into a situation without any expectations at all, and if it didn’t work out, well, at least he didn’t have his hopes up to begin with. When Derek had asked him to the exhibit, his brain had gone into minor meltdown mode and instantly jumped to the first available thought – Derek had just asked him out on a date. But no, it was impossible – Derek obviously owned a mirror, he  _knew_  what he looked like, and what Stiles looked like. People that looked like him didn’t usually spend time (willingly, at that!) wasting it around the likes of Stiles.

At least Lydia had helped him feel slightly less like his usual, doofy self. Playing her favourite role of the Fairy Godmother (though she pulled off Evil Queen with  _far_  more ease and flair than should be allowed), she’s taken him shopping.  _Shopping!_ Even as he scribbled down notes in his jotter, his pencil perilously wobbled on the last ‘e’ of the Charite  _Euphrosyne_ , their professor continuing her week-long obsessive streak of Greek-based muses and demi-gods.

“The Charites, or the  _Three Graces_ , can be seen in Botticelli’s painting of  _Primavera_ , and Pindar states that the goddesses were created to fill the world with good will and pleasant memories,” she spoke from her lectern, indicating with her laser pointer the lush springtime painting set in the orange grove displayed on the projector screen. ‘ _Oh, there were plenty of pleasant memories created Saturday night’_ , his perfidious brain supplied, and that’s when Stiles’ pencil tip snapped at the end of  _Aglaea_ ’s name. Fortunately, class ended a moment after, and Stiles was almost thankful enough to sacrifice a small animal to Zeus because he literally could not stay seated a moment longer.

It was halfway during lunch, while he was caught in the middle of a vicious tug-of-war with a vending machine, when his cell phone started buzzing in his back pocket. Wrestling the can of coke from the dispenser tray, he scrambled only for a moment before yanking the phone out from its denim prison and brought it to his ear quickly before he dropped it. “H’llo?” he squeaked, juggling his Muppets pencil case and can of fizzy drink in his other arm without dropping both.

_“Stiles? Hi, how are you?”_

Derek’s voice came through the line, and Stiles would swear up and down to anybody that asked that a freaking shaft of holy light had descended upon him (in the middle of the student cafeteria, no less). His mood was pretty good to begin with, but now he was literally on cloud nine, because the guy who’d been on his mind all weekend is talking on the phone with him. “Hi,” he replied, and he couldn’t seem to feel too bothered about how breathless his voice is, because he was just feeling too much too fast.

 _“I’m good. Great, now, actually, now that I’m talking to you,”_ Derek said, and god, Stiles needed to hide himself somewhere private because he could feel all the blood rushing to his face from how soft and fond Derek’s words were. He walked out quickly and shuffled into a corner around the cafeteria, hunkering down to sit on the pavement with his back against the wall and his backpack dumped unceremoniously by his feet.

“At the risk of coming across as an absolutely massive creeper, I couldn’t stop thinking about you all weekend,” he blurted out, and immediately he wanted to reel those stupid words back in. Obviously, Derek was interested in him, but for all Stiles knew, he just effectively made himself sound like a simpering idiot. And not even regular ones, but the scary type that wrote awful love poems inside their Lisa Frank unicorn binders and doodle their joint initials inside ballpoint hearts with arrows through it. He would never admit that he’d been sorely tempted to compose a sonnet about Derek Hale’s ridiculously fine ass, because – come _on_ , that was one stupidly glorious set of _Gluteus Maximus_ muscles. Not unless he was under duress, anyway.

 _“Same here,”_ Derek chuckled, and his voice was warm and rolled through him as though he’d downed a gallon of hot cocoa. _“I was wondering, are you free any days this week? There’s a screening of one of the old Batman movies at the theatre as a matinee session, and –”_

“Yes.” Stiles answered, hardly believing his luck because _come on_ , there was no way this perfect guy – a DC fan _and_ smoking hot – could be real. Possibly he was hallucinating, but whatever the case, he wasn’t letting this opportunity slip by. “I have tomorrow off from school, what about then?”

_“That sounds perfect.”_

 

. o O o .

 

Derek hardly took any days off, or used any of his sick days. The last time he’d taken a day off, he’d suffered an acute bout of food poisoning and had literally felt close to death. Truthfully, he didn’t feel the need to take the time off before, because he never had anything to do with the time given. Consequently, he found his holiday time supremely dull.

Stiles, though – he had come into his life like a burst of colour, all impossibly wide eyes and gleeful smiles that took his breath away. He’d taken a day off, and they’d spent their second date at the old Beacon Hills movie theatre, where a Batman movie marathon was playing, stuffed into chairs and eating enough buttered popcorn between them to feel drunk on malnutrition. In all, the day had been as perfect as their first date – they’d spent practically the entire time holding hands, even as they walked to a nearby bistro for some genuine, hot food. The ease with which Stiles laughed and brought honest smiles to his own face was almost too effortless to be believable. Derek requested a photo of Stiles for his phone’s profile picture (not that he’d admit that he used that damn sexy one of Stiles and his neck already), and Stiles obliged by taking his cell from his fingers, wrapping his arm around Derek’s neck and snapping a photo of the both of them together. Derek’s stubble had tickled Stiles’ face, and in the photograph Stiles’ mouth is open in laughter. It was easily the most precious snapshot Derek has, and he set it as his iPhone background wallpaper immediately (right after Stiles sent the photo to himself).

He could say, for the record at least, that they’re dating. They’d made time for each other on weekends and evenings here and there to see photography exhibits and movies, and one memorable afternoon at the local farmer’s market, where they’d bought ludicrously sweet peaches and devoured them while leaning against the Camaro. Derek’s memory cards from his camera started filling with new memories he wanted to capture, to cherish and to keep, as well as the camera roll of his iPhone album. Pictures of Stiles’ soft, humbled smile as he cradled a fuzzy speckled duckling against his chest at the petting zoo, of the masses of dishes that crowded their table at the Mexican restaurant, bowls of quesadillas, tamales, huaraches and frijoles, smothered with salsa and jalapeños. Slowly but surely, Stiles was slipping into his empty existence and filling the empty cracks with his dazzling brightness.

And they’d kissed. God, how they’d kissed. After Kate, Derek had wanted to keep his cards close to his chest, keep his emotions in check. What he’d begun with Stiles, it was the most special thing he’d ever felt, more than Kate, and, as such, he desperately wanted it to work out. But his plans for keeping things slow never seemed to work out, because Stiles’ long, slender fingers threaded through his own almost instinctually, and Derek had never had that before – he’d never had someone seek his touch just because they wanted to, because it felt as effortless as breathing. Kate had been all take, take, take, but Stiles had done nothing but give. He’d given him slow slides of lips and tender smiles through kisses, drawing him into warm embraces. Stiles kissed like Derek had imagined him to, cautious at first, as if testing the waters, making sure Derek wouldn’t bolt, and then deeper, unhurried. As if they had all the time in the world to explore each other’s mouths, jawlines. Derek memorised the scent of this incredible young man, how happiness and contentment colours his aroma.

They hadn’t done anything more than kiss. Derek wanted to, despite wanting to wait just a little longer, and he knew Stiles was just as keen. He could smell arousal from Stiles when their kisses got a little too fast, a little too heated, see his honey-gold eyes darken in lust. They were both ready, and his wolf was howling, wanting to wrap his jaws around Stiles’ neck and hold him down, to dominate and mate, wanting to _take_. But there was always that niggling feeling in the back of his head that, even though Stiles was different, even though _he wasn’t Kate_ , something would go wrong. He was always waiting for the other shoe to drop, for something to go wrong and for him to realize that, no, he couldn’t have nice things, no matter how much he wished to, because Kate had done such a number on his mind that he genuinely believed he didn’t deserve happiness. Didn’t deserve Stiles.

So he pulled back when their kisses got too heated, stopped himself short when his hand rucked up the edge of Stiles’ T-shirt of its own accord. He wanted to, damn, he wanted to more than anything he’d ever known. But he knew that, if he fell this hard for Stiles now, he wouldn’t ever be able to breathe normally again if he let his walls down completely and they didn’t work out. Because Stiles made him vulnerable, more than he had any right to feel, and he wasn’t sure if he wanted to recover if things went awry.

Derek decided to wait, and hoped that it wasn’t a mistake.

 

. o O o .

 

“What exactly is wrong with me?” Stiles asked Scott one evening, while both of them were on furious manhunts and armed to the teeth on their Xbox game. Allison was out to dinner with her girlfriends, and he and Scott were having their usual boys-night-in. It usually consisted of pizza and copious amounts of gaming at Scott and Allison’s apartment, but in actuality was their man-code for ‘masculine bitching, discussions of bro-feels and exchanging of manly positive affirmations’.

“Aside from your ridiculous competitive streak in every game we play, your inability to accept victory without crowing it to the world, and the fact that you refuse to let me win at least one game to make me feel better?” Scott asked, and wow, why was he suddenly speaking eloquent English sentences when his lady-love wasn’t around to hear, but when she was he turned into a goofy-grinned teddy-bear?

“Thanks, Scott, quality show of friendship right there,” Stiles intoned, raising a sarcastic brow and ‘accidentally’ firing a rocket-launcher into Scott’s character, which promptly burst into flame. “I mean… am I unattractive? Do I smell weird? Can your wolfy senses pick up some type of gross funk on me or something?”

“You smell fine. Sometimes if you have a big assignment and I see you the day it’s due you smell like Cheetos and Red Bull.” He leaned in, totally invading Stiles’ personal bubble, thank you very much (but seeing as they’d spent most of their lives roughhousing and manhandling one another, the argument seemed debatable), and took a tentative sniff. “You smell fine to me. Something getting you down?”

“It’s Derek.” Stiles huffed, flicking the controller off his lap and leaning his back against the couch. They were both seated cross-legged on the floor, so the sofa had become their personal snacks-holder and back-rest more than anything. “It’s just… I dunno, man. It’s complicated.”

“He’s not hurting you, is he?” Scott growled, eyes flashing yellow, and Stiles held his hands up quickly in a pacifying gesture. Bless him for always automatically being on his side, though, and mentally Stiles awarded him extra friendship brownie-points.

“Dude, chill, my honour with him remains unsullied. Regrettably and deplorably so,” he added, jutting his chin out mulishly as Scott leaned his elbow on the couch cushion and gave him his full attention, which was just awesome, even if it was on a slightly discomforting subject. “I just – okay, I don’t get it. We’ve been out together heaps of times, and we’ve kissed, too. I know he’s into me, and he can probably smell my ridiculous attraction to him from a three-mile radius. I mean, jesus, I gave him a ride back to his apartment once and I had to spray the Jeep with air freshener because it smelled like his stupidly amazing cologne, and I couldn’t drive anywhere because it kept distracting me. And how am I supposed to tell my father, a man employed in law enforcement, that his son totalled his car because he kept getting overwhelming urges to make out with it?”

“But… your Jeep is fine, right?” Scott ventured, a little slow on the uptake.

“Yes! Yes, she’s fine, but that’s not the point here, Scott. The point is that it’s been two months, we’ve gone out sixteen times on various outings, dates, get-togethers, rendezvous, whatever the hell you want to call them. Point is, we’ve gone out. And we’ve made out, like furiously.”

“Don’t need to know all the details here,” Scott uttered, tossing his own controller onto the floor and shoving a handful of M&Ms into his mouth.

“Okay, dude, _totally_ not cool for a guy who, back in sophomore year, begged me to proof-read a sonnet he wrote about his newly-acquired girlfriend’s many flawless perfections.” He waggled his finger imperially, and was rewarded with his best friend’s expression turning slightly contrite. “I just wanna know why he doesn’t want to take the next step. It’s not like I’m some kind of shy, unsullied maiden, dude totally knows I want to get all up in that business, and I want him to get all up in mine.” He ignored Scott’s pained groan and soldiered on. “I _know_ for a fact that he almost did try to go the next step a couple of times and stopped, I just want to know why.”

“Shouldn’t you be asking him this question?”

“That’s beside the point!” Stiles huffed, disregarding the complete faultlessness of his friend’s argument. “I just… look, you and Allison clicked from the get-go, and… okay, we’re going to avoid all the inappropriate metaphors, but you guys ended up doing the deed pretty fast.”

“It wasn’t that fast,” Scott groused, his face shifting back and forth between being annoyed at the implication and looking besotted at remembering those sweet, young memories of the springtime of his youth. Which were, like, not even that long ago.

“Focus.” Stiles snapped his fingers in front of the other’s face, disturbed that it took close to a dozen clicks to get Scott back onto planet Earth. “We’re trying to unravel the mystery of why Derek doesn’t want to get in my Batman boxer briefs, even though he totally wants a piece of this.”

“I dunno, man, maybe he’s got issues,” Scott offered, popping another chocolate into his mouth. “Maybe he’s scared of making the leap. I mean, I know I was when Allison and I got together, but I really, really, _really_ wanted to be with her, and that outweighed the constant feeling of me wanting to shit my pants about it.” He uncrossed his legs and stretched them out, a thoughtful look on his face. “Werewolf senses are different when it comes to people we like, Stiles.”

“How do you mean, different?” He takes a gummy worm from the packet, chewing resignedly.

“Like… I dunno how to describe it. Okay, remember how in third grade I totally fell for Gracie Stevens?”

“Yeah, dude, I remember, and then you totally hated her guts after that time she tore the cover that book you always carried around with you.”

“Don’t remind me, god, I was so _pissed_. Anyway, the point is that I stopped liking her. When I got bitten and turned later on, I saw everything differently. I think werewolves are more in touch with their base instincts, because everything becomes twice as hard to deal with. You have your wolf side, which knows exactly what you need and want, and then you have your human side which is all complicated. When I met Allison, it was like… _BAM_. I fell for her, and my wolf instincts inside just wanted to be with her, and nobody else. Even now, that feeling hasn’t changed. I couldn’t even try to imagine wanting to be with someone else, because it’d make my inner wolf totally hate my guts.”

“So, what, you’re saying that your wolf is like some sort of little voice of reason in your head? Like… are we taking Jiminy Cricket and the whole conscience thing?”

“Okay, now you’re the one being the idiot here,” Scott rolled his eyes at him, and Stiles made an exaggerated offended face. “I dunno. I think that werewolves see relationships different to humans, like, we see them as more, I dunno, special? Exclusive? When we like someone, we don’t just decide to like them for a little while, I think it’s like a pretty big thing. You think about them all the time, and you want to be with them for as long as you can, as often as possible. To a werewolf, love is… love is a pretty huge deal.”

They returned to the game after that, but Stiles’ focus really wasn’t on it anymore. He was reflecting on the unexpectedly wise words of his best friend. His perspective had been tilted completely on its axis, and he could see, with a startling clarity, the reason why they were stalling.

“He doesn’t think I’m serious about it, does he?” came the question a good five minutes of uninterrupted soldier slaughter later.

“Are you?” Scott asked, taking the respawn time to stretch over and cram a good half of a pizza slice into his mouth. Stiles thought very, very hard on this question, remembering Derek’s slow, bashful smile and the slide of his warm, large hand against his own as their fingers laced together. He thought about the effortlessness of their conversations, the electricity when they kissed. With a start, he realized that it wasn’t just something he wanted to have for the summer, for the next year – he wanted to have this, have these feelings for Derek, for as long as he could. It was more than lust or attraction or compatibility – it might actually be something very much like love.

“You bet your ass I am,” he grinned back, snatching up the forgotten controller. “And I’m going to show him exactly how serious I am.”

 

. o O o .

 

“I don’t know how you managed to convince me to do this,” Derek closed the door of the Camaro and shuffled his feet against the ground, trying to give Stiles his best unimpressed glare. It mustn’t have worked well at all, because the younger man just laughed his carefree, melodic chuckle and nudged his shoulder against Derek’s.

“You’ll be fine,” he grinned back, and Derek cursed him silently for being so relaxed in such a time of duress. Lord, he didn’t even know why he’d agreed to this, and despite having over a full week’s notice, it didn’t make him feel any better for it, or any more prepared.

“Why am I doing this again?” he asked, and this time he knew that his face was making an expression akin to panic. Except Derek didn’t know _how_ to panic outright, and complex emotions were _hard_ , so his face probably took on something closer to constipation than actual anxiety. This was not how he would have chosen to be remembered by in his final moments.

“You’re doing this because I asked you to?” Stiles supplied, cocking his head to one side and looking entirely too innocent for his own good. “But also, because, I think, you really wanted to,” he continued, ducking his head and smiling that charmingly shy quirk of lips, threading his fingers through Derek’s own gently, and any last vestige of argument dies on his lips instantly. “Because it’s important to me, and I want you to know that I want this – us – for the long haul. It’s ludicrously early and we haven’t known each other long, but Jesus, Derek, I just –”

“Stiles,” he cuts in, abruptly halting his boyfriend’s (and he’s _still_ not used to thinking of him as that, holy crap, but he’s been saying it in his head for practice) babbling monologue, “I’m going to stop you there, because if you keep talking like that I _will_ do something highly inappropriate to you. And I don’t think it’s particularly good manners to meet your father for the first time while I’ve got my hands all over his son.”

“We could jump in the car and go around the block? There’s a nice dark parking lot down the street that’s perfectly adequate for a prompt deflowering,” Stiles offered back, and Derek didn’t even attempt to hold back the bark of laughter that escaped from his lips. Stiles ducked in for a quick, reassuring kiss, and then Derek was being pulled towards the cosy 2-storey cottage-style house. “Just be yourself, he’ll totally love you,” he continued to say when they were at the door, smoothing down the collar on Derek’s uncomfortable dress shirt he’d decided to wear, even as he complained that it felt like a noose around his neck (but looked _hot as lava_ in), “And I know for a fact that he hasn’t got any wolfsbane bullets in his service pistol, so you’ll be hunky-dory.”

Derek hadn’t even had time to process the fact that Stiles’ father (who is the Sheriff, for god’s sake) knew he was a werewolf and was _possibly armed_ when the door opened, and said father is standing there, leaning against the doorjamb with a long-suffering look. Derek’s fight-or-flight instincts were telling him that right now it was a most _excellent_ time for flight, but he bit the (metaphorical) bullet and reaches out a hand. “Good evening, Sheriff,” he smiled, trying to look both non-threatening and like the perfect type of prospective son-in-law that parents everywhere hope their children come home with.

“Welcome to Casa de Stilinski!” Stiles chirped happily, acting as inopportunely jubilant as possible while Derek’s hand hovered in the air between the three of them. “Mi casa es tu casa, amigo!”

“Derek, nice to meet you, son,” the Sheriff replied, taking the proffered hand and clasping it warmly. “Stiles has told me a lot about you, I’m glad you could make it to dinner. Come on in,” he stepped back, gesturing to the room within. The house smelled like lasagne and ratatouille, absolutely mouth-watering, and the inviting, homey feel of the place was a far cry from his designer, sterile apartment, and immediately Derek felt warmed through. He was momentarily taken back to his old house, bursting at the seams with his family before the fire, and was glad for the reassuring squeeze to his hand that Stiles gave once the handshake with his father was over.

“I was told not to bring anything, but I was taught it was bad manners to be invited to dinner without at least an offering to the hosts,” he casually offered the small, foil bag to the Sheriff, who raised his eyebrows in surprise when he unveiled a bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue Label. If he couldn’t bring a salad to show how well he could provide for his partner, he figured he might as well try to curry as much favour as he could with a $200 bottle of scotch whiskey. And if he’d prowled through countless aisles at the liquor store to find something ludicrously over-the-top in hopes of ingratiating himself with his boyfriend’s dad, well, nobody had to know.

“Awesome! We can have _apéritifs_ before dinner and a _digestif_ after!” Stiles grinned, making grabby hands for the bottle. The resounding answer of ‘ _No_ ’ by both his father and boyfriend simultaneously made him draw his arms back as if they’d been slapped. “Fine, spoilsports, whatever,” he grumbled, slinking away to check on the lasagne in the oven and muttering loudly about traitorous boyfriends and mutinous family members. The Sheriff rolled his eyes away from Stiles’ moodily retreating back (so _that’s_ where he gets it from, he realized) and shared a look with Derek that somehow seemed to cement their camaraderie at having to put up with Stiles’ special brand of… well, Stiles-ness.

“Let’s go have a sit on the couch for a few minutes while dinner finishes cooking,” the Sheriff gestured further in to the living room, a slight quirk playing about his lips. “And you can tell me all about how you happened to get mixed up in this mess.”

 

. o O o .

 

A little over 3,000 miles away, Laura Hale settled down to sleep with her arm around her mate, Steven, the feeling of guilt heavy in her throat. They’d spent the night arguing about her family – specifically, her younger brother Derek.

It hadn't been their first argument about it. Steven was from a large pack too, and couldn’t understand why Laura had chosen to abandon her relatives in a separate state. Laura didn’t even have an excuse – she’d needed space to grieve, space to put her head back together again after such a heartbreaking loss. And while she’d regretted moving to New York, and cutting off all contact with her last two remaining relatives, she hadn't regretted her work as a florist. Nor had she regretted meeting Steven, and them falling in love.

But family was a hard bond to break, and Steven had finally, _finally_ gotten through to her. He’d been right – family was the most crucial, important thing in her life, and she needed to get back in contact with them. She nuzzled against her mate’s neck, feeling warm and protected as his heavy arm encircled her waist, glad that he had talked sense back into her stubborn head. Tomorrow, she would ring Peter, and Derek, and work as hard as she could to repair the bridges she’d burned behind her.

Hours later, Laura and Steven woke suddenly, bodies on hyper-alert for the sudden change they’d subconsciously detected with their lupine senses. Nothing had visibly changed at all, but the look they shared between them was overjoyed, and they clasped each other’s hands and whooped, kissing and rubbing their hands against each other, scenting and giddy with joy. Only after almost two solid hours of rapture did they calm a little, falling exhausted back onto the sheets and grinning from ear to ear.

Laura fell asleep with a smile that refused to diminish, happy to have another reason to ring her younger brother up and tell him all about the almost-but-not-quite undetectable sound of another tiny heartbeat beside her own that had awoken them. 


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my god, I am so sorry it's taken me this long to get the next chapter up of this. It's been a hell of a month, with exams and assignments and things due at the last minute, and I'm dressing for a stage musical so I won't be able to update anything for at least the next few weeks. But after that, I'll have a mid-year break, in which I plan to finish this baby off! WOO!
> 
> Thank you SO MUCH to everybody for being so ridiculously patient and lovely with me, I love you all! *gross smooches*
> 
> This chapter is dedicated to Deej, who is a total babe and was so so SO helpful in pushing me over my writing block and helping me finangle words, because how do I English sometimes?
> 
> As always, you can find me [on Tumblr](http://yijitumbles.tumblr.com/). If you have any prompts for fics you want to throw my way, have at it~!

“Derek,” the name carried itself in the quietness of the office, and Derek felt his shoulders tense. Whenever Peter said his name in that tone of voice, he knew something was coming. A bad sort of something.

“Yes, Peter?” he asked, swivelling in his chair and propping his arm on the back, aiming for completely casual.

“Have you organised the models and sets for the Christmas spread yet?” his uncle asked, smiling benignly as he shuffled papers in his hand.

The Christmas spread. Right. He hid the wince by bringing his hand up to scratch the side of his nose, staying resolutely silent as the older man fixed him with a look (that _look_ of his) and quirked an eyebrow. It must be a genetic Hale thing, because both he _and_ Laura had been known to do the whole eyebrow thing at people to prove a point. It was a family trait, almost a genetic thing, really.

“Just as long as you get it planned and underway before the end of the month,” Peter continued on, patting Derek on the shoulder as he passed. And, shit, Derek really needed to buckle down and get to work, because he had completely forgotten about setting it up.

He hadn't forgotten, technically. It was just that other things, recently, had occupied his time and focus. Other things being particular features and mannerisms all centred around one individ- oh, who the hell was he kidding? It was Stiles. Stiles was taking up all his focus because they’d not even gone past first base yet, and all Derek could focus on was the fact that he was trying to take it _slow_ , goddammit, when all his senses were screaming at him to try for a home run. And, great, now he was thinking in _baseball metaphors_. Honestly, though, he was beyond elated that Stiles didn’t seem to find his werewolf heritage disturbing, or frightening, or gross. But how much, if anything at all, exactly, did he know about werewolves and their mating habits? Was he aware that werewolves mated for life? That, to him, this wasn’t just a simple fling?

He huffed, berating himself as he gathered his paperwork in piles and sorted through his desk. Of course Stiles knew this was serious – he’d said so himself, hadn't he? Stiles had pointedly said (and Derek remembered because he’d replayed that moment in his head on repeat for ages afterwards) that he was in it ‘for the long haul’. He’d met his _father_ for dinner, for god’s sake, that had to count for something. Whatever the case, he assured himself that there really was no rush to go all the way, especially now that both of them were finally settling down and being comfortable with each other. Call him a hopeless romantic, sure, but when the moment came, it would be right for both of them. While his wolf wanted nothing more than take Stiles now, possess him now, he didn’t want to force either of them. Maybe he was still treading softly because of Kate, but it never hurt to be more careful than not.

Because Stiles was precious. He deserved to feel comfortable and safe, and, more than the physical desire, Derek wanted to anchor the both of them into something solid, something that would last.

Cracking his knuckles, Derek sifted through the mess that was his desk (seriously, he’d only cleaned up this morning, how was it this disorganised already?) and took out his relevant paperwork. He needed to organise the calendar for the shoots, the models and their respective costumes, and the scenery. The backdrop and set wouldn’t be too difficult to put together – he still had plenty of Christmas things from last year, and the budget Peter had allocated for it would cover anything else he needed. The ideas he’d sketched out for the poses had already been penned down roughly in a sketchpad (located currently somewhere in the black hole that was his desk). Now he just had to sort out the availability of the cast and schedule them in.

He was good with this part, at least – arranging the roster of the shoots. Peter had given him a list of the models and their respective availabilities penned out on a rather handy colour-coordinated calendar page. It was planned between the ninth and thirteenth of December, with the next week getting the photos ready for print and the magazine out on the shelves by the twentieth, right on Peter’s schedule. Plenty of time, he figured.

It was easy enough to shift twelve names around on a one-week roster by lining up their free times. He furrowed his brow as he checked, double-checked and then triple-checked his timetables. He didn’t want to shoot more than two models per day, but it looked like… his stomach sank as the inevitability of the fact hit home – because of his studies, Stiles’ free time was only on the weekend, and with the layout plan so far, counting in everybody else’s accessibilities…

“Well, shit,” he huffed, scouring a broad hand through his hair. Stiles and Jeremy would both have to be booked in on the Saturday, the final day of shooting. There didn’t seem to be any way around this, no matter how Derek tried to find someone else. Everybody’s times clashed with respective commitments, and he’d planned to take Stiles out that evening for dinner anyway, so he could to occupy the final slot. Somehow, he’d make it work. He’d book Jeremy in the early morning, and try get the shoot done as fast as he could to leave as much time between them as possible. He was fairly certain he could wrangle at least a two-hour gap between the shoots, and, factoring in the account of Jeremy being a diva, it would leave him with a good hour to spare. He hesitated, then erased the names and swapped the orders around, making Stiles the morning shoot and Jeremy the afternoon one. He couldn’t count on the more experienced model to finish on time, but at least he’d be safe in the knowledge that Stiles could do the job, and well. When he’d type the email, he’d make sure that Stiles and Jeremy had at least a solid hour between their shoots, rather than the regular twenty-minute break for the others.

He jotted the names and times for the shoots down on a separate, neater piece of paper, ready to email out. He was just about to type up the times to email them when Erica tapped on the wall of his cubicle, drawing his attention away.

“Peter said he wanted to see you in his office,” she stated, picking a stray thread off her shirt sleeve. “He says it’s important, to come now.”

“Alright,” Derek grumbled in reply, thrusting the sheet of paper at her. “Give these times to Isaac to email out to the models individually. They need to be done ASAP.”

“Roger,” Erica saluted back, spinning on her heel and striding confidently down the hallway. Rubbing his fingers absently over his knuckles, Derek trudged to Peter’s office and knocked on the door, letting himself in before hearing a reply. Peter was family, after all, and it wasn’t like he had any sort of social competency when it came to respecting other peoples’ boundaries. Derek had learned that the hard way, living his childhood in the same family home and being constantly walked in on.

“I’ve just worked out the rosters for the spread shoot next week, and Isaac’s going to email them out now,” Derek began, but then stopped himself. Peter was sitting at his desk as usual, yet his posture was completely different from his usual, insouciant carriage. He was holding the wireless phone in his hands, looking down at it as though it were something truly special, a genuine smile (and wow, Derek hadn't seen one of those in some time) tugging at his lips.

“Derek,” he murmured, voice quiet and softly awed. “I just got off the phone with Laura.”

 

. o O o .

 

“You’re definitely sure you want to do this?” Derek asked him for what seemed like the zillionth time. Stiles (barely) repressed the urge to roll his eyes, _hard_ , at his boyfriend. Instead, he pushed the 3D glasses back up the bridge of his nose with a fingertip and flicked a few kernels of popcorn at him.

“If you ask me that one more time, I swear I’m gonna watch the rest of this movie,” he gestured at the drive-in they were parked at emphatically, spilling a few more kernels in the process, “While chewing this delicious, buttery goodness loudly and obnoxiously.”

“You mean even more loudly and obnoxiously than before,” Derek deadpanned over the screech of the D-grade zombie chewing an innocent protagonist’s brain.

“Oh, go take a long walk off a short pier, fuzzface,” Stiles hummed, settling down further against Derek’s chest with a contented sigh as he crammed more popcorn into his mouth. He didn’t even care that the floor of his Jeep was looking more like the floor or a regular cinema aisle, or that he was rapidly losing multiple brain cells with every minute that transpired in this godawful movie ( _why_ had he decided to see it in the first place?). Derek was a comforting presence behind him, solid and warm in the chilly weather (it was getting damn close to Christmas, after all) as his hand lay splayed across Stiles’ abdomen, the gesture casual and intimate. He almost couldn’t believe his luck, just how _right_ everything felt. Well, except for the whole ‘not having sex’ bit, but he was pretty sure they were building up to that, and, as impatient as he was, Stiles didn’t want to rush a single moment of this thing he had with Derek.

Derek was important.

“So, about this shoot,” he began, having managed a whole four minutes of silence before his concentration on the (seriously, beyond ridiculously bad) movie slipped again. “It’s Christmas themed, right?”

“Yes, it’s for the Christmas spread, after all.” Derek rumbled contentedly behind him, reaching for the cup of Pepsi on the cup holder and taking a slow sip through the straw, eyes glued to the screen (how was he still _watching_ this drivel?).

“So does that mean we wear costumes?” Stiles piped up, suddenly interested, and he could have sworn that Derek immediately crammed the cup back into the holder to avoid spilling it all over himself. He pulled his plastic viewing glasses off turned to face Derek, lips stretching into a grin of supreme smugness. “I was right, wasn’t I?”

“Technically, I was planning to have the models wearing seasonal clothes. Like sweaters. And scarves.” Derek answered quickly, and Stiles could feel his grin broaden at the way Derek suddenly looked caged in. A moment later, a multifaceted array of emotions passed over the other’s face, and it became obvious with the final, dawning expression of (Surprise? Horror? delight?) _something_ complex, which only highlighted the most obvious statement that _Derek hadn't thought about it at all_.

“Now I’m a little bit disappointed, Derek,” Stiles sighed, his voice melodramatic as he shifted to wrap his arms around Derek’s neck, placing a chaste peck on the edge of his mouth. “Here I thought you’d be jumping at the chance to get all these hot guys in Christmas-themed costumes. Don’t tell me you’ve never thought of me in sequinned red hotpants and felt antlers, that’s just a travesty.”

He meant it as a joke, of course, but the way that Derek’s eyes suddenly slid out of focus, pupils blowing wide, made something heavy and molten drop into the pit of his stomach. He managed to get out a little _‘Oh’_ , soft and throaty, before Derek was grabbing his biceps in a solid (but not at all painful) hold and pitching the both of them into a sitting up position. And there went the bucket of popcorn, joining the rest of its fallen comrades to decorate his Jeep’s floor with a thick, even carpet of buttered corn.

“Stiles, _Jesus,_ ” Derek groaned, and, oh, his lips were pressing against his own now in a frantic, barely-suppressed crash, dragging a shudder and a half-groan from him as he scrabbled against Derek’s jacket. It felt like seconds and an eternity before they pulled apart, and Derek looked absolutely wrecked, though not nearly half as much as Stiles _felt_. “I swear to god, Stiles, sometimes I don’t even know how I can control myself around you.” Derek murmured, his thumbs rubbing idle circles against his hoodie’s sleeves.

Stiles wanted to flick him in the nose, wanted to whisper _don’t hold back from me, ever_ as he pulled him closer, wanted to back his Jeep out of this damned drive-in and park at the make-out point and drop on his knees amongst the popcorn on the floor of his car and suck Derek’s brain out through his dick. Instead, he leaned in and kissed him again, the pace slow and measured. After all, they had all the time in the world for this, he reasoned. Derek kissed and kissed and kissed back, one of his broad hands resting flat against Stiles’ back, and it felt like heaven and safety and comfort, all the things that Derek had brought to him. Who cares if they’d done nothing but kiss, anyway? Kissing was fantastic, kissing was awesome – Stiles could kiss Derek’s stupidly handsome face all day long and not care.

“After the shoot,” Derek murmured when they’d drifted an inch apart, sharing each other’s breaths. “… After. What are you – do you have plans for the weekend?”

“If by plans you mean sitting on the couch in my boxers and eating Cap’n Crunch straight out of the box while watching reruns of Law and Order,” Stiles laughed, settling himself against Derek and making himself more comfortable. “The thirteenth is my last day for break, and we don’t go back until the third. Well, technically the twentieth is our _last_ last day, but us cool mythological and folklore kids skip out on it because we don’t do anything but revise anyway, and all our lecturers are about as lazy as we are.”

Derek didn’t say anything for a few moments, and Stiles honest to goodness thought the subject had passed, before Derek shuffled a little under his weight, the slight squeak of his leather jacket the only noise between them.

“Did you – want to spend the weekend at my place?” Derek asked, and despite the casual tone in his voice, the offhanded way he suggests it, Stiles picked up the tenseness of his jaw, the minute extra pressure against his back as Derek held him that little bit tighter. His Cheshire grin came back full force and they were kissing again, his head fizzy and giddy and his heart thumping a wild tattoo while his stomach exploded in giant monarch butterflies.

Needless to say, the rest of the atrocious zombie movie was forgotten.

 

. o O o .

 

 _“I’m thinking of moving back. To Beacon Hills.”_ Laura said, her voice brimming with emotion over the phone. Derek was folded into his worn, overstuffed, comfortable armchair, the one that doesn’t match any of his classy, expensive furniture in the apartment, yet got the most use. He closed his eyes and exhaled, warmth seeping through every molecule in his body. This was the first time he’s spoken to his older sister, his _alpha_ , in years, and each second had felt like the most precious thing in the universe. They’d been on the phone for close to two hours, and there’d been a lot of emotion and tears. A _lot_.

“You have?” he murmured, his voice wrecked from emotion. He felt exhausted, positively drained from his emotional rollercoaster, but strangely allayed. “What’s making you change your mind?”

 _“Pack,”_ Laura replied, her own voice warm and hoarse from the tears she’d shed. _“I was wrong to leave after the… after we lost everyone. I didn’t know what to do.”_

“I don’t blame you, you know.” Derek answered back, feeling like he needs to tell his sister this, like it was the most important sentence he was going to utter to her. “I’m not going to lie, Laur, I missed you. When you left… nothing felt right anymore. I felt lonely, but I don’t blame you for leaving.”

 _“You should,”_ she sighed, sorrowful. _“Der, I made such a cockup of things. I was hurting so much that my head wasn’t thinking properly, about what I needed to do for the rest of us. I – I was selfish. I should have stayed, Derek. I should have fulfilled my alpha duties and kept the rest of our pack together. And what did I do? I fucked off to New York and left you and Peter by yourselves.”_ Her voice was harsh by the end of it, self-deprecating and angry.

“I think we did okay,” Derek joked, even though both of them knew they weren’t, they hadn't been for a long, long time.

 _“I want to come back.”_ Laura’s voice was determined, stronger, and there was a smile behind it again. _“I’ve missed you more than I can begin to describe, baby bro. I’ve even missed Peter,”_ which set them both laughing, their mirth creaky and raw with disuse _. “I want you to meet Steven. He’s… he’s really great. He’s really good for me, and I think I’m pretty good for him too. I think – he might be my mate.”_

“That’s great,” he grinned, immediately happy for his sister. “I can’t wait to meet him.” He paused, his chest squeezing tight, before he soldiered on. “There’s also someone you should – someone I want you to meet.” There was a silence on the other end, and he knew that Laura was very purposefully not saying anything to give Derek time to gather his words. “He’s – Laura, he’s just incredible.”

 _“Derek, that’s just – that’s so great, I can’t wait to meet him too. Looks like we’re both twitterpated.”_ The sadness was gone from her voice completely, and Derek was willing to bet anything that she’s mirroring the goofy, smitten grin he was sporting. _“Does he make you happy?”_

Derek thought about the way Stiles ducked his head and smiled, small and exquisite, when he’s embarrassed or shy. He recalled the way Stiles wrapped himself around Derek’s body after they’d been kissing, leaning his head against Derek’s chest to hear his heartbeat and exhaling with satisfaction, radiating contentment and serenity. The way they could lie against each other on the couch watching awful movies and make him feel the most tranquil he’s ever felt in his life, a peaceful quietude that he’s never experienced before.

“Yes,” he whispered, smiling his own, private smile reserved only for Stiles. Stiles, who was sarcastic and whose brain-to-mouth filter was, at times, non-existent, and usually at the most inopportune. Who watched awful movies and made Derek watch them too, who ate weird toppings on his pizza and talked so excitedly about comparative mythology theories, and who had let Derek into his life and somehow made everything seem brighter and more dazzling with his mere existence. “Laura, you have no idea.”

 _“You sound happy,”_ she agreed, _“You really do. I’m so happy for you, Der, I really am. I – I’m going to discuss it with Steven, and we’ll figure out when the best time to move is, and then I’ll talk more with you and Peter. Try to get our pack back together – do the right thing by you guys. Not let you both down again.”_

“You never let us down, sis. You just – I think we were all hurting back then, and you did what you had to do to get _yourself_ together. And you did – you might have left, and we were all hurting for a bit, but you got a job and met Steven, right? And you got yourself sorted out.”

Laura made an agreeing sound, began to say something else and then caught herself. Derek didn’t push it – they hadn’t spoken in so long that it’d be ridiculous to expect them to talk as openly as before, when they’d finished each other’s sentences and could have entire conversations by one look alone.

“We’ve got plenty of time ahead of us to talk about things now that we’re talking again. It’s going to be fine,” he said, out loud, actually believing it himself for once.

 _“Yeah, you’re right,”_ his sister replied over the phone. _“Everything’s going to be alright.”_

. o O o .

He hadn’t been able to properly talk to Derek all week because of the marathon days of shooting Derek has had to do for the Christmas spread (which he just _knows_ , despite Derek’s dogged insistence, that he’d left to the very last minute). Stiles got through the last teaching week of his course before the winter break with his soul intact, if only for the fact that he’d been diligent enough in his studies to have his work finished to a standard that he approves of (which Scott has, on more than one occasion, called ‘perfectionist-tier’). He and Derek messaged each other infrequently, which was in itself a blessing, allowing Stiles to put his nose to the grindstone and finish the few remaining mandatory worksheets and mini-assignments, while Derek worked through his shoots.

By the time Saturday came around, Stiles was practically vibrating out of his skin with anticipation. He’d been thinking about what Derek had offered since he’d dropped him off home after the movies, disbelieving the concept that Derek was offering to take their relationship _to the next level_. He’d be lying if he said that he hadn't been wanting this for a long, long time, but he was willing to wait until both of them were ready – wait until the act was less about lust and more meaningful, more consequential to them equally.

Derek was already in the studio when he arrived, setting up his equipment and checking over the settings of the camera. The smile he greeted him with dispelled the chill still clinging to his body from the outside immediately, and Stiles had to practically force himself not to grin like a loon and kiss Derek breathless. He failed miserably at the first, but prided himself at the fact that he’d reined in his craving enough to limit their physical interaction at a quick peck on the lips.

“Your nose is cold,” Derek huffed an almost laugh as he rubbed their noses together in an Eskimo kiss, and Stiles was _very_ hard-pressed not to make an idiot of himself by swooning. Instead, he scrunched his face up (probably looking downright unappealing in the process) and stepped back, peeling off his jacket and feeling very grateful for the warmth inside the building, considering how the weather had suddenly decided to plummet in the past few days. The way the cold snap had settled, his father was predicting a very white, very cold Christmas.

“You do realise that it’s incredibly difficult to formulate a good comeback when your extremities are affected with frostbite, right?” Stiles rubbed at the tip of his nose, trying very hard not to step back into the warm circle of Derek’s arms and waive doing the shoot altogether in favour of cuddle-time. But his boyfriend did say that, if everything got done in time, he could take the Monday off, and who in their right mind would relinquish the idea of two full days spent at their significant other’s house? Not Stiles, no way no how.

“This looks mighty cosy,” he nodded at the set arranged against the wall, a cookie cut-out of a warm, Christmassy den that could have been lifted directly from the pages of a Martha Stewart magazine, complete with a cheery fireplace and decorated tree. It reminded him that he and his father still hadn't gone looking for a tree, and maybe they could invite Derek over to look for one with them, and just the thought of that warmed him from the inside out as if he’d just chugged an entire jug of spiked eggnog.

“It’s not much, but it does the job,” Derek replied, already sorting through a rack of clothes nearby, stuffed full with warm-looking sweaters, scarves and holiday-themed attire. His fingers stilled on the hangers, pausing as his face showed an expression of deep contemplation. “The fireplace isn’t real, but if you’re cold I can always switch the space-heater on. How are you feeling, temperature-wise?” he asked, eyes flicking over Stiles’ chill-reddened cheeks.

“I’m fine, now that I’m inside. The studio’s heated anyway, right? Why? Did you have a –” he didn’t continue because the words stuck in his throat, realising that Derek was asking because it probably involved a shoot with _less clothing_. He wouldn’t object, no, never in a million years, but somehow he was still a little hesitant to give Derek an eyeful of himself when Derek was – well, a walking advertisement for Men’s Health Magazine, and though Stiles was by no means scrawny, his body was nothing remarkable.

Derek pulled out a sweater from the rack, and Stiles thanked every deity he could remember in that moment that his boyfriend had decent enough taste not to include eye-scarringly ugly seasonal clothing as part of the wardrobe. The sweater was a thick knit, incredibly soft-looking and very, very oversized, enough that it’d hang loosely on Derek’s bulkier frame, never mind on Stiles’. It was a deep, rich red, and, save for a few stitched snowflake motifs, undecorated. It was the type of pullover that Stiles would have gladly incorporated into his own wardrobe, if it had been in his size, of course. His eyes slid to Derek’s, who was doing an admirable job of keeping his features schooled into careful indifference.

“I had the idea that maybe you could –” he began, holding the hanger with the sweater in his hooked fingers and giving it an inexpressive little waggle. “We could shoot it to look like you’re just wearing this. Are you – do you have boxers on today? Or…”

“I’m wearing briefs,” Stiles answered, just a touch too fast. Feeling the heat flood his face, he grabbed the proffered article of clothing and made his way to the changeroom. Once inside, he hurriedly stripped off his clothes down to his briefs and pulled the sweater on, finding himself practically _swimming_ in it. Stiles had to tamp down a sudden surge of arousal at the notion of doing a shoot wearing nothing (supposedly) but the large cotton garment. It was stupidly erotic, in a coy sort of way. Padding out on bare feet, he watched Derek fumble with the controls on the small space heater he’d set up beside the set, suddenly glad that his boyfriend (he never got tired of thinking about Derek as _his boyfriend_ ) was thoughtful enough to set it up, especially considering how, despite the studio being heated, the floor was still cool under his toes. The little radiator made a clunking sort of sound, then whirred to life, and Stiles bit back a laugh at the pleased, almost triumphant noise Derek made at asserting his dominance over the tiny, worn appliance.

“Okay, we’re all set up if you want to just get in scene, and –” Derek began, turning around with his fists planted on his hips, but then seemed to screech to a stop when his eyes caught sight of Stiles. His eyes flashed a violent, bright blue for a moment, before he scrubbed his hand from forehead to chin, uttering a raspy, heartfelt _“Fuck,”_ that, in all honesty, set fireworks off in the pit of Stiles’ belly. Fidgeting a fraction in his costume, Stiles quickly walked to the miniature den and stood on the plush woven rug, waiting for instructions while Derek had his minor mental breakdown.

“Okay,” the photographer exhaled after he seemingly took those precious few moments to get his mind back in one piece. “Stiles, I’ll get you to sit – actually, kind of half-lie a little over here, and I’ll get you to recline on those… yeah, that big present over there, next to the tree.”

He didn’t exactly know why, but the time of their shoot seemed to drag on and speed by all at once. His poses were simple but effective, half-sprawled on the carpet in front of the fireplace or lounging against the tufted leather armchair, his legs arranged out in front of him, long and bare and angled in such a way as to hide his briefs and make him look like he was wearing nothing underneath. Derek snapped away like a crazed paparazzo that was offered the latest scoop, only pausing long enough to suggest a new angle, or a different pose.

Stiles wasn’t going to lie – he was loving it. Something about the intense way Derek was looking at him through the camera lens, the tense concentration that furrowed his brow slightly as he shifted this way and that, capturing the angle he wanted. All of these things made him feel alluring and captivating, and okay, maybe he played it up a little for the camera as well, if only for the fact that it was _Derek_ behind it, and somehow it made it feel a little on the kinky side. He was enjoying the way that, every so often, Derek got this look on his face that made him look like he was having some very serious stomach cramps, but they were entirely in a _good_ way, and it was because of _him_. The knowledge alone was making him half-hard beneath the crimson textile that was barely doing its intended purpose.

“Can you pull that side down a bit?” Derek indicated the collar of the giant sweater sounding slightly strangled, and Stiles obliged gladly, the soft cotton sliding inches lower. In this pose he was lying on his back on the carpet, one arm curled behind his head and his legs bent at the knee. He was smiling wickedly (and a little smugly) upside-down at the camera while the pulled-down sweater exposed his right arm almost down to the elbow and a good couple of hand-spans of his chest, stopping short of uncovering his nipple. He shifted slightly to tilt his head to the left, exposing the pale column of his neck and the smooth line of his clavicle and tendon.

“ _Jesus,_ Stiles, don’t move,” Derek breathed amidst furious clicking of the shutter, and only moments later Derek pulled the camera away from his face and switched it off, jerking into a standing position and hurriedly depositing the camera onto the nearby table, the shoot apparently over. Stiles leaned up on his elbows, watching the other shift around with slightly harried movements, but before he could do much more, Derek had stamped back, hardly giving him time to blink before he _pounced_. In the next moment, Stiles was pressed down against the soft rug as Derek devoured his mouth in a frenzied, passionate kiss, hard and filthy and absolutely mind-blowing. His brain completely short-circuited then, because all he could do was make pathetic little gasping noises and whines as the other plundered his mouth, Derek’s tongue mapping the insides thoroughly and completely. He pulled back to suck in a lungful of air, only to let out a keen when Derek’s tongue dragged a hot path along his jugular.

“Christ, Stiles, you have no fucking idea what you do to me, how positively _edible_ you look right now,” Derek panted against him, trailing hot, open-mouthed kisses up his neck and along his jaw. “You just look so goddamn amazing and fuck, I just want to _devour_ you,” and Stiles could only whine and grab onto the fabric of Derek’s shirt on his back as Derek sealed his mouth over his again as he tried to keep up with the frenetic pace. Derek’s broad, warm hand slipped under him, hoisting the back of his thigh up and hooking Stiles’ leg over his hip, and _oh_ , Derek was grinding against him, and Stiles could feel an answering hardness pressing against his own, the friction between his briefs and Derek’s jeans sending sparks shooting behind his eyelids.

As quickly as it started, the epic makeout session to end all makeout sessions suddenly stopped. Derek was sitting up on his knees a good few paces away, chest heaving as though he’d run a marathon and eyes struggling to return to their normal colour. Stiles simply lay there, feeling dizzy and displaced, blinking owlishly up at him.

“Whuhappened?” he mumbled incoherently, scrabbling up onto his elbows. Derek drew in a deep breath and shuddered, hands curling into fists.

“I think we should – stop, for now, Stiles. I don’t want to – I don’t want our first time to be a quick fuck on the floor at my workplace. I can barely function as it is when I think about you, and if this place smells like you and me and _us_ and sex, I don’t… I think we should just stop for the moment.” Stiles must have been making a disappointed face, because Derek swooped back in and kissed him again, though this time it was gentle and sweet, a stark contrast to their previous one. “When you come over tonight,” he murmured, running his thumb so gently across Stiles’ lower lip, making him almost cross-eyed with desire, “I’ll make it good for you Stiles. I’ll make it so good, I promise.”

“Oh my god, you are officially the worst person ever,” Stiles whined, his voice tremulous with slight, late-onset hysteria, “Seriously, you’re so lucky that we’re doing the weekend thing at your place, because if you make me wait any longer my _balls will fall off_.”

“It’s a good thing we’re not going to wait much longer, then, isn’t it?” Derek chuckled, getting to his feet and offering his hand down to Stiles, who promptly took it and let himself be pulled up. Another quick kiss, soft and chaste, and then Derek pulled away entirely.

“I have to go grab another memory card for the next shoot,” he said, “You should – you should get changed, before you become a complete distraction and I can’t focus on anything else aside from thoughts of dragging you back to my place. I still have one more shoot to do later today.”

“’Distraction’, huh?” Stiles huffed, though his grin belied the grouchiness of his tone. “You are seriously the biggest cocktease in history, mister. Go, go grab your damn memory card,” he flapped a hand at the door, “I’m gonna get changed and try not to die of blue-ball-syndrome, and when you come back you’re buying me lunch for being an insufferable tease.”

“You got it – give me about ten minutes and then we’ll go get a baguette from that place you like up the road,” Derek offered, and Stiles flapped an irritated (fake irritated, anyway) hand in his face again, willing him to just _go already_. Despite the mood being completely and utterly broken, he was still proud of the fact that Derek was sporting the patented Boner Strut as he walked, and all because of him. Cackling like a mad genius, he quickly changed back in the dressing, shoving the sweater back onto the coat hanger and making a mental note to definitely buy himself an extra-extra-extra-large sweater for winter, especially if he and Derek were going to be spending nights together. He could damn well get used to a scenario like this, that’s for sure.

While waiting for Derek to come back, Stiles pulled his phone out and proceeded to whittle away the time by trying to beat his high score on Temple Run ( _damn_ those evil monkey-demon things!). He was just about to beat his latest high score when the sound of the studio door opening shifted his attention (causing his character to run off the ledge and into the waters to probably get eaten by a hippo or something).

“Holy _shit_ , it smells like a porn studio in here,” came an offended-sounding voice, definitely _not_ Derek, and Stiles’ head snapped up from his phone so suddenly that he could swear he got whiplash. Sauntering into the studio was Jeremy-from-the-Sex-Issue himself, casting an unimpressed look at the Christmas-themed set and tossing his blond hair out of his eyes with a disdainful flick reminiscent of Prince Charming from Shrek. Stiles coloured from the neck up completely, remembering the pages he’d seen of the guy where he’d practically eye-fucked the camera, but then Jeremy’s sky-blue eyes were raking over him, taking in the sight of Stiles’ beaten-up Converses and layered flannel as if it were something interesting, though less ‘fascinating’-interesting and more ‘my god, what is this strange foreign organism I just stepped on?’-interesting.

“Hel- _lo_ ,” Jeremy crooned, stretching the second half of the word to sound almost obscene. “And _you_ must be the new one, then.”


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One chapter left after this, guys! Woo! We're almost at the end! And now that I'm on study break, it'll definitely be completed within the next week or two!
> 
> I've had so much fun writing this that I've actually decided to make one or two add-on ficlets to this, hence why I've turned it into a series! You'll be able to check out whatever stories I add to this verse [here](http://archiveofourown.org/series/48769) once I've finished with them.
> 
> Once again, heaps of thanks to you guys for the motivation and support in what's been my longest fic so far. I've had so much feedback on Jeremy that it's entirely possible that I was considering making a mini-series entitled 'Everybody Hates Jeremy'. If you guys didn't like him before... hoooo, boy. Grab your knuckledusters, chaps.
> 
> As always, feel free to throw rocks at me [on my Tumblr.](http://yijitumbles.tumblr.com/)

“The – new one?” Stiles repeated, his eyebrows drawing together in confusion. Jeremy was standing in front of him, eyebrow still quirked upwards as he raked his eyes over Stiles in a _wholly uncomfortable manner_ , thank you very much. Stiles, however, was raised with some semblance of manners (even if he does forget to implement them in most situations), so he plastered a wide smile on his face and extended his hand. “I’m Stiles, dude, nice to meet you.”

“Likewise,” came the reply, though it sounded like Jeremy meant anything but. He returned the smile, even if it was a little on the prickly side, and Stiles fought to keep the even-tempered expression on his face despite the fact that Jeremy’s handshake felt entirely too forceful, and his metacarpals were slowly but surely being ground to fine powder in the bruising grip.

“You’re human,” the blond observed, and yep, there was definitely a widening of the nostrils there that Stiles wasn’t quite okay with. Taking his hand back, he fumbled with the bottom clasp of his hoodie and zipped it up, almost as if he could put another barrier between them, no matter how flimsy it might be. ”We don’t see many humans around in the studio here. They tend to feel… _intimidated_.”

“Oh, do they?” Stiles queried lightly, shoving his hands in the front pocket of his hoodie, flexing his abused digits surreptitiously and wondering if he’d somehow sustained a hairline fracture.

“Wouldn’t blame them, if I were in their shoes,” Jeremy continued, making it crystal-clear to Stiles that he seemed to be one of those people that talked to be the centre of attention at all times, and loved the sound of their own voice. “Being the physically inferior race and all. What with werewolves and their amped-up genetics, senses, all that. I wonder how much they had to pay you to step foot in the same building as us. Or, more likely, how much more they have to pay us for working with humans.” His tone was bordering on a sneer, the word ‘humans’ drawled out like an insult, even if his attractive face showed nothing more than a pleasant countenance, and Stiles immediately felt his hackles rise. He didn’t like this guy, not one bit.

“My best friend’s a werewolf,” he countered, aiming his own timbre into conversational. “We’ve been friends since we were practically in diapers, and he’s been a wolf since he was a kid. We’ve grown up together, and I’m not afraid of werewolves.” He levelled his eyes at Jeremy, despite being a good couple of inches shorter, his gaze reading loud and clear _I’m not afraid of you_.

“Well, look at that. Kitten’s got claws,” came the chuckled reply, and Jeremy shifted his weight onto the other leg, hand casually propped on his jean-clad hip. “So, you just finished your shoot, then? How’d it go?”

“Fine.” Stiles supplied, his answer short and tone curt. Jeremy turned to look back at the Christmassy set, humming under his breath in observation.

“Smells like it went more than fine to me. I can smell Hale all over you.” His grin returned, knife-edged and sharp. “This entire studio practically reeks of pheromones – obviously you two couldn’t keep your hands off each other. Not exactly an air of professional conduct going on.” He cocked his head and tutted, as if he were admonishing a five year-old. “How long have you two been fucking?”

“My personal life is none of your goddamn business,” Stiles hissed between gritted teeth, feeling his face flush.

“Pity you think so, the conversation’s started getting so interesting,” the other smirked, taking a step forward and effectively caging Stiles against the desk. “But I know Hale, and his inability to keep his eyes and hands off pretty little things.” He pressed a thumb to the side of Stiles’ neck, just below the ear, and his lips widened into a leer when Stiles’ hand flew up to press against it. There wasn’t a bruise there, they’d both been careful not to leave marks against his neck for weeks before the shoot, but it was Derek’s favourite place to leave open-mouthed kisses. Stiles felt a knot of panic clench in his chest as he turned away, his other hand fisting in the pocket of his hoodie so tightly he felt the joints in his hand creak.

“I wouldn’t be so quick to deny the fact that you’ve bumped uglies with Derek, even if he does leave you looking like a pile of mince afterwards. He’s damn good at what he does, after all.”

It was that last sentence that jerked Stiles’ attention away from the ground to settle on Jeremy’s face in confusion.

“Why are you looking at me like it surprises you?” Jeremy asked, his face such a picture of innocence that he could practically be wearing a goddamn halo. “Don’t tell me you don’t know? Oh. _Ohhh_.” He dragged the vowel out with a wicked leer, like the cat that caught the canary. “You _don’t_ know, do you? Oh, this is precious.”

“I have no idea what the fuck you’re going on about,” Stiles muttered back, even as he felt the bottom drop out of his stomach as the other model’s face lit up like a Christmas tree.

“Sorry, that’s my bad,” the other man replied cheerily, sounding anything but apologetic. “I just assumed that, if you were shooting with Derek, you must also be sleeping with him too. Guess I read the signals wrong, but it wouldn’t surprise me – after all,” he flicked the hoodie’s strings idly with a fingertip, “It’s not like Derek’s short on company.”

“What do you mean, short on company?” Stiles found himself blurting out, even if it was the last question in existence he wanted answered, even if he knew, he _knew,_ to leave it alone.

“Derek fucks like a jackhammer, did you know that?” Jeremy twirled a bauble on one of his gaudy necklaces between his fingers idly, his tone as conversational as if he were merely making a passing observation about the weather. “He’s about as silent as a rock all the time, but he gets the job done, and thoroughly. I can’t usually walk properly the next day, even with the crazy werewolf healing thing going on – it’s probably why he doesn’t bother with humans, being so fragile and all. Well, that, and the fact that his surly face and sour mood doesn’t leave any room for anything but hook-ups and flings. He’s never serious about anybody – he doesn’t want to be. And even if he says so, he’s lying – he’s done it before, to get somebody into bed for a one-nighter, and then dumps them in the morning.”

“You’re lying,” Stiles breathed, because the other werewolf _had_ to be. The callous Derek he was describing wasn’t the one he knew – the one who sat curled up with him on his dad’s couch and discussed awful cinematography while they watched movies, who won him a cheaply-made lucha libre mask in the local Mexican place’s burrito challenge. Derek, who kissed so tenderly and smiled so softly and slowly, like a flower opening to the sun.

“I’ve been his longest hook-up so far because I give him what he wants – a no-strings attached fuck, and don’t bullshit him with semantics about it. Ask the stud yourself, if you don’t believe me,” Jeremy offered, jerking his chin at the door, and a moment later Derek was walking through them, a small carton of memory cards in his hand. Stiles didn’t miss the way his entire body froze, shoulders straight with tension, and his eyes flitted back between the both of them warily.

Well, shit.

 

. o O o .

 

Derek hadn't known exactly what he’d been expecting. It definitely hadn't been Jeremy standing right next to Stiles, both of them with their eyes trained on the door. Derek could hear Stiles’ heartbeat thumping erratically in his chest, bringing uneven blotches of angry colour to his cheeks. From the expression on Stiles’ face, though, even being gone five minutes had proved too long.

Dimly, he remembered the email sheet he’d given Erica to get Isaac to send out. How he’d rewritten the names and days, but hadn't added the addendum to put an hour between Stiles and Jeremy’s shoots. And Isaac must have assumed that they were the same as the other models on those days, and sent out the times one after another.

Well, shit.

“Stiles-” Derek began, but already Stiles was pulling on his jacket and looking at anywhere but him.

“I have to go.” Stiles said, his voice tight, shouldering his bag. “Right now. Um. I have to go now.” And then Stiles was giving him a wide berth and pushing through the studio doors.

“Shame about the little kitten,” Jeremy had sidled up to him in the meantime while he’d been standing there frozen like a turkey in a freezer, and grabbed the back of his jeans with a firm squeeze that meant business. “But I’m always available to play, even if he’s not.”

“You touch me again, and I’ll rip your entire arm off at the shoulder,” Derek rounded onto the blond and snarled, before dashing madly through the door and running after Stiles. He caught up with him in the building’s lobby just as he passed Erica’s desk, who was popping her gum with an expression of surprise as Stiles marched right by her without so much as a greeting.

“Stiles, _wait_ ,” he entreated, catching him by the arm. He’d expected Stiles to shake him off, to keep storming through the doors, but instead the younger man turned on his heel and stared him down, his eyes overly-bright and glittering with emotion.

“He told me you weren’t serious about me because you’re sleeping around with other people,” Stiles stated, voice reedy, and _Jesus_ if that didn’t feel like a punch to the gut. Derek dropped his hand as if it had been burned, his face a mask of confusion as Stiles went on. “He said you don’t bother with anything except hook-ups, that you’re not interested in anything more than one-night stands. That you don’t _want_ to be interested in anything else.”

“I didn’t,” Derek states, simply, and then his eyes widened in horror as he realized how his words came out, how Stiles’ face twisted in misery. “I mean – damn it, that’s not how I meant it to come out. Stiles, I meant to say that I didn’t want a relationship until I met you.”

“And now you’ve changed your mind?” Stiles shot back, sounding unconvinced.

“Yes!” he exclaimed, feeling like the world’s most uncommunicative asshole, sensing Erica’s eyes (and now Boyd too? Where’d _he_ come from?) on him from her desk. “Yes,” he said again, his voice softer, “Or course.”

“Have you slept with him?” he asked, his expression serious. “With Jeremy.”

“Yes,” he replied without pause, hating himself every growing moment for this atrocious timing and unfolding of events, “But it was in the past.”

“That’s not the way he chose to word it.”

“Then he’s lying!” Derek couldn’t help the raised volume of his voice, which took them both by surprise and made them startle, moving a few inches away from each other. It wasn’t the best place for a heart-to-heart with Stiles, especially with such a delicate subject at hand, but he’d always planned to tell Stiles everything – he’d needed to, especially when he was so serious about them both, when he planned to introduce Stiles to _Laura_ as his _mate_.

Of course, that’s when Jeremy, with the universe’s worst possible timing ever, had decided to storm his way into the fray, his entire body tight with indignation.

“ _Nobody_ walks out on me, you little shit,” he hissed, lips drawn in a tight line as he stalked over to them. Derek turned to face him, subconsciously standing in front of Stiles to form some semblance of protection. “Since when do you refuse a personal invitation from me?”

“We’re having a private conversation here,” Derek growled back, standing to his full height and straightening his arms by his sides, crossing his arms over his chest and trying to keep his temper in check. “One that isn’t open to audiences. So if you’d kindly _fuck off_ , it’d be much appreciated, thanks.” He could feel Stiles shifting awkwardly behind him, and his wolf was _howling_ inside to start a fight, protect his mate, to show off the victory.

“What, your new little toy is so important to you that you’re willing to give up on all this?” Jeremy gestured to himself expansively, as if Derek could even compare him to Stiles. He didn’t need to – Stiles was _stratospheres_ beyond anything Jeremy could offer, could have given him. “Maybe you won’t want to bother with your little kitten once I’m through with him, because there won’t be enough left of him to carry in a plastic bucket,” Jeremy snarled, his eyes flashing gold and jaw snapping on open air, and he did _not_ just threaten Stiles, oh fuck no. Derek’s eyes glowed blue, and he was just about to let his wolf take over when-

“What,” came Peter’s voice, calm and soft enough to make all of them (Erica and Boyd included) freeze in their tracks, “is going on in the foyer of my building?”

 

. o O o .

 

Stiles had heard Peter speak before, though only briefly, but even with his limited contact he could tell that the owner of the magazine wasn’t a person to be trifled with. Even now, standing gawkily behind Derek with his jacket scrunched awkwardly under the strap of his backpack, he could feel the palpable tension in the room, thick enough to cut with a knife. Peter had just walked through the door on one side of the foyer with a stack of stapled papers, standing still with one hand in the pocket of his slacks, his eyes focused on the three of them clustered in the middle of the room.

“Funny, I wasn’t expecting altercations on a Saturday,” Peter stated, and even though the tone of his voice was the same, pleasant, measured inflection as before, there was definitely nothing agreeable about the expression on his face. If anything, his countenance was icy to the point of being downright inhospitable. Stiles hazarded a glance at Derek, observing the tense set of his shoulders, the way his Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed tautly. Peter shifted slightly, though, seemingly unaware (or perhaps uncaring) of the apprehension in the atmosphere, his sedate voice a distant echo that Stiles was sure would make Severus Snape weep with pride as he turned his eyes to Derek. “What’s going on here?”

“Stiles and I were just having a conversation, before Jeremy interrupted us,” Derek said, and wow, okay, major understatement of the century there. Through the tight knot of hurt in his throat, Stiles couldn’t help but feel at least a little bit better that Derek had shuffled a few inches towards him, as though the magnetic force between them was too strong to ignore. He didn’t trust himself to stay where he was, though, too wounded to make rational decisions (like the fact that he wanted to grasp the back of Derek’s shirt and bury his face in it), so he just stuffed his hands into the warm pockets of his jacket and said nothing.

“This is none of your business, Peter,” Jeremy snapped back, his jaw working as though he felt sorely tempted to extend his fangs and start gnashing on something, possibly Stiles’ jugular. And even though Stiles had the presence of mind not to aggravate the dangerous werewolf (despite Derek maintaining his rigid stance between them), he wasn’t the only one that felt the temperature in the room drop at least twenty degrees in that moment.

“I think you’ll find it _is_ my business, Mr. Campbell.” Peter continued, now making his way over to them, his gait unconcerned and his eyes now completely devoid of their usual mirth. Stiles was _very_ glad that it was Jeremy who was on the end of that gaze, and not himself. “Because unless my auditory senses are failing me, I seem to have distinctly heard you threaten somebody in my building. And I, for one,” he was standing close to them now, closer to him and Derek and a couple of feet away from Jeremy, “have a zero-tolerance policy on verbal intimidations, especially made to my staff or,” he gestured to Stiles offhandedly, “anyone else in my building, be they under an employment contract or not.”

“I never threatened anybody!” Jeremy snarled, though he took a half-step backwards.

“Now, now, Mr. Campbell. I specifically heard you menace Mr. Stilinski here with an immediate fate of dismemberment, and I am clearly against that. If you hadn't noticed, we’ve just had the tiles in the lobby cleaned recently, and blood is terribly difficult, not to mention expensive, to remove from grout.” The smile was back now, though it didn’t reach his eyes and it left Stiles feeling cold all over. “I recall speaking to you some time ago about the stipulations in your contract, and what we expect from our employees. Your unprofessional conduct from the very beginning has always been a problem, but it’s clear that, rather than becoming easier to work with, you’re proving to be more and more difficult instead. Quite unprofessional, if you ask me.”

“That’s bullshit, I’m a _professional_ model and you know it!” the blond hissed back, but Stiles could see his eyes were wide and some of the anger had drained from his face, having been replaced with agitation. “I have multiple agencies that ask for me. You can’t just-”

“I can, and I will.” Peter’s voice was sharp like scissors, cutting the thread of Jeremy’s protest before it had ended. “I’ve given you multiple chances to redeem yourself, Mr. Campbell, considering you’re one of our publication’s most popular models. But your misconduct in the past, coupled with multiple complaints from many of our staff,” (Derek’s face was impassive, but Stiles could see Erica hiding a smirk behind her crimson-nailed hand) “make you a liability we cannot continue to work with or tolerate. You’re more than welcome to continue working for your other agencies, but I’m afraid that your contract with us now had been terminated.”

“You can’t-”

“And another thing, _Mr. Campbell_ ,” Peter continued, placing a hand on Jeremy’s shoulder in a way that looked entirely companionable, were it not for the heavy flinch from the younger man that betrayed just how tight the grip was. “I don’t appreciate having to come into my own office on a weekend to do extra work, and to see my staff confronted and have threats made against them from _anybody_. So unless you’d like an official restraining order placed on you, I’d suggest staying well away from this building, and any person who has ever worked here.” He gave a very pointed look at Stiles and Derek, and then moved his eyes, now a beta-shade of blue, back to him. “At the very minimum, a hundred feet should do it. It’s always easier to avoid unsightly accidents that way, don’t you think? Now, I believe it’s time for you to leave my building and never set foot in it again, before I call security on you. Or worse, make you leave the building myself.”

He flashed one last smile, knife-like and razor-sharp, with just a hint of too many teeth. And Stiles had to hand it to Peter Hale as he watched Jeremy sputter and indignantly stomp out of the edifice – the man got his point across as clear as crystal.

 

. o O o .

 

Holy shit.

Derek had just discovered that his uncle, who seemed to precariously toe the fine line between unconcerned blasé and perturbingly unsettling, was kind of a badass. He couldn’t even hide the impressed raise of his eyebrows when Jeremy turned on his heel and diva-stomped his way out of the office with surprisingly less drama than he had anticipated at the beginning of the altercation. He had expected some maiming, or at least a little dismemberment, but he was sure that he wouldn’t be charged too aggressively, especially if Stiles’ sheriff of a father discovered that it was all because Derek was protecting his boyfriend’s limbs and honour.

His boyfriend. Who was standing directly behind him, and with whom he was having their actual first real argument.

As far as plans go, he hadn't expected their first argument to be about something so – emotionally terrifying. Maybe something silly, like not squeezing the toothpaste from the end of the tube. Derek had planned a lot of things, because he was a bit of an obsessive about this, and he’d actually intended to sit Stiles down and have a good Deep-and-Meaningful (ugh, he despised Laura for somehow worming that phrase into his vocabulary as a kid) about everything – about the fire and his family, about Kate, about the aftermath. He and Stiles were still so new, this was actually going to _mean_ something, goddammit, especially for someone as reticent and unforthcoming as he was. Out of his own mouth, the retelling of his history would have _meant_ something. And now, Stiles was standing inches away from him, but for all the warmth that had been lost between them, it could have been the fucking Pacific Ocean. He didn’t know what Jeremy had told Stiles, but when he met his eyes, and there was something guarded and hurt in his gaze, before it dropped down to the ground. It didn’t budge, even when Derek murmured Stiles’ name, and damn if that didn’t feel like the most horrible sensation on the planet.

“So. It appears that you’re one model short for the rest of the spread, Derek.” Peter said matter-of-factly, tapping his chin with a finger. “Never you mind, we can sort this out. Boyd,” he pointed at the other man standing behind Erica’s desk, whose face remained impassive even if his spine straightened almost imperceptibly with a slight jerk. “Take your shirt off, you’re Mister December, or whatever the hell month Derek needs.”

Derek cast Peter a panicked look, because the very last thing he wanted to do right now was close himself up in the photo studio for the next hour or two and do a shoot, especially when he and Stiles were in the middle of – of a _thing_ that needs fixing. Every single fibre of his being, wolf and human alike, was screaming at him to gather Stiles up and hold him close, spirit him away to his apartment and tell him everything. But Stiles still wasn’t looking at him, was casting his eyes around to look at anything _but_ him, and he had a very strong notion that invading the few inches of personal bubble Stiles had put up around himself will make the situation worse, rather than better.

Plus, he was sure that if he shirked the Christmas spread any longer, Peter would actively seek him out, cut off his junk and turn it into fertiliser for that stupid Japanese peace lily in his office.

Fuck, he hated that plant more than ever.

Because the afternoon couldn’t get any more bizarre, Peter dropped a hand on Stiles’ shoulder, an immense contrast to the action he performed on Jeremy just a few minutes prior. Though Derek strongly suspected it was because this time, it was just a casual gesture, whereas before it had genuinely given the impression that Peter was attempting to crush Jeremy’s clavicle into a fine powder.

“While you take care of the rest of the spread, Mr. Stilinski and I need to have a brief discussion in my office. Derek, please report to me when you’re done.” And Peter, without further ado, propelled Stiles by the shoulder around and through the doors to the office suites, out of sight, making what felt approximately the size and weight of a cold anvil drop into the pit of Derek’s stomach.

“My honeymuffin’s gonna get his pants off for the camera!” Erica squealed, clapping her hands together in delight while Boyd did something complicated with his face, by some means bypassing both ‘exasperated’ and ‘disturbed’ and settling on ‘constipated’. And somehow, knowing that he wouldn’t get a chance to talk to Stiles for at least the next hour and a half seemed to make the situation feel even more hopeless.

Goddammit.

 

. o O o .

 

“Take a seat, Mr. Stilinski,” Peter gestured to the chair in front of his desk, and despite wanting to do nothing more than to go home, curl up under his comforter and brood, Stiles reluctantly slid the backpack off his shoulder and sat down. While the manager of the magazine busied himself with filling disposable paper cups with water from the cooler, Stiles chewed on the edge of his thumbnail, suddenly feeling nervous and glancing around the older man’s office.

There was a rather dreadful-looking plant in the corner of the office, huge and lush and thick with waxy-looking green leaves and those ugly-ass flowers that looked like white teardrops and lumpy caterpillars, the type of plant that looked like cheap plastic and probably adorned every office-space by default. Stiles had never really carried much animosity towards inanimate objects before (unless they wronged him, then he carried plenty of hostility for things, like the corners of coffee-tables), but somehow he found himself with a deep-rooted, subconscious and thorough loathing of the damn thing. Maybe it was because he felt really fucking pissed off, and confused, and the only thing he felt safe in doing at the present time is to deepen his enmity for the potted plant.

“I know, it’s simply hideous, isn’t it?” Peter commented lightly, handing Stiles his cup of water and gesturing at the plant with his own. “I received it as a Christmas present a few years back from an intern. I thought about throwing it away, or re-gifting it, but when I discovered just how much it offends Derek with its mere existence, I reconsidered and kept it instead.” He sat down on his own chair, taking a measured sip out of his cup.

“Derek wasn’t picking a fight with Jeremy,” Stiles blurted out, holding the cup between two hands, wondering _what the heck_ , because he was angry at somebody, maybe Derek, maybe himself, and where the hell did this sudden need to defend him arise?

“Nice of you to confirm that, Mr. Stilinski-”

“Stiles.”

“ _Stiles_. Yes, thank you, Stiles, but it’s nothing that I didn’t already know.”

“I‘m sorry?”

“Jeremy’s always been – a handful, if you were to put it lightly.” Peter leaned his elbows on the desk in front of him and clasped his hands together in that non-threatening newsreader manner, and Stiles couldn’t help but take a long, deep drink of his water, just to do something that wasn’t merely sitting there like a gawking idiot. “His photographs have always sold a high number of our magazines, especially when he does fashion spreads, but he was becoming more and more difficult to work with, not to mention the open dislike that our resident photographer has for him. To be perfectly straightforward, I’d been considering letting him go for quite some time now, but he’s been treading lightly since I first threatened to tear up his contract. Thankfully, the situation today provided me with more than enough justification to terminate his employment here.”

“Open dislike – so you’re saying Derek and he aren’t –?” he trailed off, making a vague hand-gesture that could have meant a number of things, none of which he was specifically looking to associate the both of them doing together. It was enough of an exercise in ego-bruising when he and Derek went out together (because okay, he has the cute guy-next-door vibe going, but honestly Derek has an avid dedication to the golden ration because _daaaaamn_ ), but to know that he’d been with werewolf models (by far sexier than even _regular_ models at that) is just even more of a case of self-flagellation.

“Honestly, I don’t even have to wonder what that revolting excuse of a model must have told you just now,” Peter deadpanned, his face completely unimpressed. “As for my dear nephew, he may be as dense as a rock, and equally as verbose sometimes, but the boy has a good heart.” He exhaled through his nose and pushed the stack of papers on his desk to the left a fraction of an inch, straightening the corners. “He’s made mistakes in his past, we all have. And none of those are my stories to tell, but to be honest, I have a feeling he wasn’t planning on staying silent with you for long about them. He thinks very highly of you, Stiles; one would honestly believe you hung the moon from the sheer regard he has for you.”

“Oh.” That was really all Stiles could say, looking down at the half-full cup between his fingers.

“I don’t even think he knew himself how fond he was of you right from the get-go. As reserved as he might be, subtle he is not. It was practically written all over his face when he handed me the photographs from your first mutual shoot together how smitten he was with you. Honestly, the boy’s as transparent as plexiglass.” He seemed to find Stiles’ uncomfortable squirming a suitable answer for his musings, because he took this chance to lean forward and fix Stiles with the same, terrifying smile that he’d shown Jeremy before. “I believe you’re a clever enough lad to understand that I care deeply about my nephew, and my family, and that he is quite serious about the relationship between the two of you. And, as such, it seems customary to extend the worried family-member speech of inflicting deep, physical harm on you were you to hurt Derek, or lead him along with something you’re not completely resolute in.”

“I wouldn’t hurt him. Not intentionally, never.” Stiles answered back, surprising himself with just how adamant he sounded. “If I did, I’m sure you’d have to get in line, because I’m pretty sure my dad is absolutely thrilled to finally have someone he can watch the football and drink beer with, and if I took away his sports-friend, people wouldn’t be able to find the body, let alone desecrate it.”

“I’m glad,” Peter smiled again, this time more genuine (and okay, Stiles totally got the fact that he was glad that he wouldn’t be hurting Derek, but it still came across slightly creepy to be expressing that sentiment _after_ what he’d just said). “Now, I know this great coffee-house that has free wifi about ten minutes from here,” he said, taking a slip of note paper from his desk and jotting down something that Stiles couldn’t quite read from that angle. “I highly suggest you take a little while to go there and try some of their hot peach cobbler and ice-cream. I’ve got your cell-phone number on file, you’ll be hearing from me very soon.”

Stiles took the proffered note and skimmed it, then folded the slip of paper into his jeans pocket.

“Some pie does sound good right about now,” he agreed.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HOLY MOLEY! It's FINISHED! It's finally FINISHED!
> 
> *lays face-down on the ground and cries*
> 
> Not only is this the longest chapter in the entire work, but it's also got plenty of NSFW writing (time to edit those tags!) and the epilogue (artfully tacked onto the end, because if I dragged this out any longer I'm _pretty_ sure some of you would have my head for that).
> 
> This has been my longest fic to date. I can't even believe I managed to finish something so long. Thank you SO MUCH to everybody who's stuck through this fic with me, who've given me kudos, favourited it, bookmarked it and commented. Without you guys, I don't think I would have ever gotten around to finishing it at all.
> 
> I plan a couple of extra ficlets to add to this universe, which is all going to be stuck together [as a series!](http://archiveofourown.org/series/48769) Woo! Get excited for that! (they'll probably end up being short PWP's, so wahey!)
> 
> As always, I can be found [lurking on my Tumblr!](http://yijitumbles.tumblr.com) Feel free to drop by and say hello, shoot me a prompt, or throw stones at me! 8'D
> 
> (thank you SO MUCH to my darlings Toby and Deej, without you two babes this wouldn't have even gotten halfway done! <3)

He’d been sitting in the booth of this stupid café for almost two hours now. He’d fulfilled his sugar craving with a thick serving of their famous peach cobbler (and damn but it had been delicious, Peter was right on the money with it) and had, at last count, imbibed two-and-a-quarter coffees. And, for the most part, he’d been unable to keep his attention settled on any one thing. He’d taken two separate books from his backpack, stared at their pages without absorbing even a single word, and then moodily stuffed them back inside. The wifi managed to capture his interest, until he realized that he’s checked his emails, browsed both eBay and Amazon for a particular book he’d been thinking of buying, and caught up on his Tumblr newsfeed (a feat in itself, really), and even then only managed to waste an hour.

The week-old gossip magazines from the coffee-house rack had been nothing short of awkward. Granted, he probably shouldn’t have bothered flicking through a glossy periodical with titles splashed across the pages in eye-searing colours, accusing starlets and idols of cheating on each other. Yep, definitely not the best thing to peruse, not in his state of mind at any rate. He tried doing the Sudoku puzzle, but found he had zero patience with the numbers. The crossword at the back fared even less favourably, considering Stiles abandoned all pretence of even reading the clues; instead figuring out how many colourful adjectives he could fit in the boxes that described Jeremy.

These two hours had given Stiles a lot of time to sit and think, something he didn’t often do, especially when he was bothered by something. As his father would attest (often accompanied with a long-suffering eye-roll), Stiles usually flew off the handle then and there when he was upset, or went away and brooded (he brooded in a very manly way and decidedly did  _not_  sulk, thank you very much, because sulking was not in any way manly) until everything burst out of him like an overflowing dam. He didn’t particularly want to admit it to himself, but he must be growing older, or at least more mature, because in the last couple of hours his feelings from the whole confrontation had gone through more changes and twists than an M. Night Shyamalan film.

Thing is. The thing is – he was angry. He was damn angry. And hurt.  _Incredibly_  hurt. But while sitting at the diner and eating that slice of cobbler (and the two-plus coffees), he’d come to understand that it wasn’t Derek he was enraged with, but Jeremy, and himself. Because, in all truth, Derek hadn't done anything wrong. Whatever had transpired between Derek and Jeremy had been in the past, and he knew that if he’d been in Jeremy’s shoes, he wouldn’t have wanted someone as great as Derek to slip away from him so easily. Stiles frowned to himself as he filled in 35-across ( _Famous waterfalls and tourist site in Ontario, – Falls_ [7]) with  _JERKWAD_ , the nib of the pen pressing slightly harder than necessary through the paper.

He knew Derek. And he  _loved_  him. He knew for a fact that Derek wasn’t the type of person to screw someone around, or lead them on with false promises. He knew, deep down, that Derek cared about him just as much, and was willing to bet every penny in his (meagre) savings that his boyfriend was eventually going to reveal his past relationships to him. Stiles was irate with himself, because he should have trusted Derek instantly, he should have completely dismissed whatever bullshit Jeremy had spouted and taken none of it to heart, because he was absolutely, positively, 100-percent certain that Derek was as serious about them as Stiles was, if not more so.

God, he was so stupidly in love with Derek.

And now he’d doodled hearts in the margins of the crossword. Boy, if anybody came across that, they’d think there was some serious bipolar issues happening in this relationship. He surreptitiously tore the page out and scrunched it, shoving his hand through the flap of the close-by bin and ridding the world of his stupidity, one graffitied crossword-puzzle at a time.

And, as luck would have it, it was at that specific moment his cell phone beeped with a message.

Stiles swiped his thumb over the touch screen to unlock it, read it, and then exhaled, amping himself for what he’d next planned to do. Taking the piece of paper from his pocket, he unfolded it and rechecked the information written in neat handwriting over its surface. As much as he freaked him out with his inspiring Hannibal impersonation, he had to hand it to Peter that the guy was impressively sneaky, and definitely resourceful. Pulling his bag back onto his shoulder, he tucked the paper back into his pocket and left the café, face set with determination.

 

. o O o .

 

He’d been shooting Boyd for the past two hours, and he sweore that it would have taken him a third of the time, had Erica not insisted in tagging along to watch the shoot. If anything, her presence alone seemed to make Boyd less amenable to relaxing properly in his poses, and it was only halfway through that Derek finally put his foot down, told Erica that enough was enough, and demanded she either stop distracting her boyfriend with the eye-fucking or leave. He was in a completely foul mood, and the two lovebirds making eyes at each other wasn’t helping his disposition in the slightest, not even when Erica somehow found a pair of edible candy underwear in one of the prop boxes and dissolved into hysterical giggles.

Finally,  _finally_ , the shoot was finished. Still wearing his grim expression, Derek began packing away the Christmas hats and the stupid felt stockings into the prop boxes, temper completely subterranean by then. It took all of three minutes of packing (while Boyd and Erica were in the changing room, the sniggers emanating from within doing nothing to reassure him that Boyd was actually getting more clothes on, rather than fewer) for him to give up on the task altogether. He’d had enough of today to last him a lifetime, and the stupid fake Christmas scene can stay up until he was good and ready to take it down on Tuesday. Grumpily, he left everything where it lay, yanked the memory card from the camera, and shrugged his jacket on.

“Don’t stink out my studio with your pheromones!” he yelled in the direction of the changing room, where muffled noises were coming from, and angrily stomped out to find Peter. He was at his desk, as usual, typing out something on his computer when Derek deposited the USB device in front of him.

“You’re finished with the shoot, then?” he asked, but before Derek could reply, the older man held up a finger to pause him. With his other hand, he pulled out his cell phone and tapped something briefly out on the touch screen (a message or a memo, by the brevity of it), before pocketing it again. “Any problems with Boyd?”

“Boyd was fine,” Derek grunted back in reply, his hands jammed into his pockets.

“Excellent. Looks like you managed to finish everything in the nick of time. And it’s only,” he checked his Rolex and smiled, “About three in the afternoon. This entire Christmas-themed shoot has made me quite agreeable, so I’ll let you go home early today.” He waved his hand around, and Derek caught a glint in the corner and – oh,  _Christ_ , he’d put tiny baubles on that stupid plant. Derek had to leave, right this minute, before he defenestrated the pot, leaves and flowers and baubles and all.

“Before I forget, you should probably head home first – I had something ordered to your apartment, and I need you to go check on it.”

“This can’t wait?” Derek grumbled in return, because he knew how Peter got with his eBay orders sometimes, and he  _really_  didn’t have time to check on his uncle’s latest impulse-buying result. Not when he needed to drive to Stiles’ house and find him, sit him down and beg him to hear him out.

“I’m afraid not, Derek, I’m sorry. But it shouldn’t take you too long, and then you have the rest of the weekend at your disposal. I’ll see you bright and early on Tuesday morning!” He accompanied this with a friendly little wave, which might as well have been a dismissal, for all the finality the little action held.

It took him moments to pack up the rest of the gear from his desk, and, steadfastly avoiding going back to the studio (where Boyd and Erica were undoubtedly getting their nookie on) he stomped out to his car. The drive back to the apartment took longer than the usual ten minutes, if only because he seemed to catch every red light and slow-moving pedestrian in town. His mood was absolutely foul by the time he reached his apartment building, punching the button for the elevator so hard that he didn’t doubt his thumbprint might have permanently imprinted itself on the surface. Part of him was sorely tempted to take whatever box had been delivered and drop it down the garbage disposal chute, or better still, the elevator shaft. He couldn’t possibly know what exactly it  _is_  that Peter’s ordered, but knowing the guy so long, he was expecting the unexpected.

The absolute  _last_  thing he was expecting, as the elevator reached his floor and the doors opened, was to turn the corner and find Stiles sitting in front of his door.

 

. o O o .

 

“Hey,” is what Stiles decided to open with, because of all the things he was trying to portray, unaffectedly casual was obviously one of them. It seemed to be all good and well, though, because Derek appeared to be rooted to the spot, eyes wide and slightly panicked, so Stiles felt a little bit less like punching himself in the face for his stupid nonchalant greeting.

“What are you doing here?” Derek asked, because after the debacle at the office, Stiles was probably the last person on the planet he expected to find sitting on his doorstep. His tone was neither accusing or demanding, but rather confused and somewhat mystified, and Stiles felt a small smile creep on his face. He still felt a bit like shit, undoubtedly they both do, but he was glad for the moment that Derek hadn’t walked right past him and slammed the door in his face for dropping him like a hot potato at work.

“Peter gave me your address,” he stated easily, standing up and dusting the back of his jeans. “He concocted this whole elaborate scheme that involved text messages of your current locations and diners with surprisingly good cobbler and unsurprisingly bad coffee.” He held up his cell phone and waggled it in the air. “Very James Bond villain-esque.”

“That son of a bitch,” Derek muttered. He fingered the keys in his hand a moment, shaking his head like he can’t quite believe it, can’t quite trust his eyes that Stiles was, in fact, standing right in front of him. “D’you – want to come in? For a coffee or something?” His voice was slightly guarded, his expression closed off, and Stiles felt like a grade-A asshole that it was him that’d made Derek act like that.

“I think I’ve had more than enough coffee to last me for the rest of the week.” His reply was light-hearted in words, but the voice that came out was low and soft, as if he was trying not to spook Derek away. Instead, he took a step forward and hooked his fingers in Derek’s, halting the jangle of keys like the other had done to him in the parking lot after their first official date at the museum. “What I’d really like is to come inside and talk to you.” He tilted his head forward a little, until they were almost touching but not quite. “Please,” he murmured, a sudden twist in his chest at the idea that perhaps Derek wouldn’t let him in after all. Derek wordlessly nodded, however, and squeezed his fingers briefly, before unlocking his apartment door and leading them inside.

The apartment was spacious and homey, with high ceilings and wooden floors, the furniture comfortable and with a lived-in look. Stiles had expected something sleek and high-tech, but there were sturdy wooden shelves full of books, comfortable couches that looked just about ready to swallow you whole, and relaxed clutter that spoke more of a working environment than being lazy. It was a little rustic and very lived-in, despite how big it was, and Stiles felt at home instantly. Hell, he kind of wanted to stay there forever, what with the artistic photography in frames on the wall and the large flatscreen television and the ridiculously handsome inhabitant of said home.

Derek took off his jacket, and Stiles followed suit, leaving his backpack haphazardly on the ground and following Derek into the living room area of the apartment. They took a seat on Derek’s plush couch, an arm-span of distance between them, and sat in drawn-out silence for a long time. Derek was looking at his hands, clasped tightly between his knees, and Stiles worried at his thumbnail, eyes on the Persian-style rug under his coffee table. He hated confrontations, and arguments, and especially hated the fact that they were about to have their very first one  _right there and then_ , and he swallowed heavily, realizing that maybe he wasn’t as mentally prepared for it as he first thought. So they sat, and sat some more, and not a word passed between them for what felt like years.

“I shouldn’t have even listened to that douchebag when he started talking,” he said after a long time in silence, and then flinched because  _of course_  he had to break the silence first. Derek startled, as if he’d forgotten that the both of them were there at all, and turned his jewel-coloured eyes to look at him in adorable confusion. Stiles swallowed nervously, wiped his damp palms on the knees of his jeans, and went on. “Whatever the hell he said shouldn’t have even mattered, because I’ve been with you long enough to know that I should trust you, and not what some other deluded fuckwit has to say. I was just –” he took a deep breath, licked his lips, and pulled out the big guns.

“I was scared. I’m scared of this, of us.” He flapped a hand between them in a slightly frenzied gesture. “It’s like, Derek, wow. You’re this wonderful guy. You’re intelligent, and polite, and stupidly sweet, and you have this hilarious, deadpan sense of humour that I never expect, but always takes me by surprise and it’s fantastic. You’re built like a resident of Olympus, and your face is just stupidly attractive. I can’t even describe the colour of your eyes, and trust me, I’ve tried because I always stare at you like a googly-eyed idiot. The closest I’ve come to putting a name to your ridiculous peepers is green glass opal, because I was googling gemstones one night for class and I saw one that reminded me of you. I’m just – I’m  _absolutely crazy_  about you. And I’m not disparaging your tastes or whatever, but honestly? Me? While you have a career of taking photographs of monumentally gorgeous people –“

“ – Stiles.”

“ – Okay, so maybe I  _am_ finding fault in the fact that you’re attracted to me because seriously,  _I_  wouldn’t be attracted to me. Which is kind of a redundant point to make, really, since I  _am_  me, and you’re you. But existential crises aside –”

“Stiles.”

“ – I trust you completely, dude, one-hundred-percent full of trust for you. I just don’t trust the rest of the skeazeballs out there in the world, you know the ones, like that guy last week who was totally making eyes on you at Starbucks, and when you made it clear that you were with  _me_ he did that whole  _eyebrow raise_ thing, which practically screamed ‘are you serious?’, and didn’t  _that_  piss me off, and I have a feeling that I’m going to spend a lot of the time in our future on the receiving end of that look, for certain. ”

“ _Stiles!_ ” Derek exclaimed, his voice utterly exasperated. Stiles immediately shut his mouth, hard enough to feel his teeth clack together. But Derek was chuckling, his face full to the brim with fondness, and it just about squeezed every single rib in Stiles’ chest. He sidled a little closer and slid his hand atop Derek’s arm, feeling reassured and pleased when Derek didn’t pull away, but turned his face and smiled at him, some of the tension gone from the hard line of his shoulders.

“You’re really something else, Stiles,” Derek murmured, unclasping his hands and lacing his fingers through Stiles’ own.

“Yeah, my dad keeps telling me I’m a real piece of work,” he grumbled back, which earned an outright laugh from Derek, and a solid tug forward, until they were lying horizontal on the sofa, his body sprawled haphazardly atop of Derek’s. He let his body be manipulated by the older man until they were rearranged more comfortably together, his face pressed against the hard muscle of Derek’s chest, head tucked comfortably under his chin.

“I’ve had a couple of boyfriends before,” Stiles mumbled, fingertips drawing whorls against Derek’s chest. He felt Derek stiffen under him, the hand against his back press down an infinitesimal fraction harder, possessive, and he smiled. “It wasn’t – it was never serious, though. Scott, my best friend, he was a total bro when it came to figuring that out, you know? Like, in high school I had crushes on a couple of guys, but nothing that I acted out on. And then… yeah. I went out with someone in my freshman year, but that didn’t really last long. And there was someone else in sophomore year. But they were just – I think I was just eager to stop being single and  _be_ with someone, so they didn’t really –” he tapered off with a shrug. “None of them were serious, not to me, really. I didn’t date for a while after that. And then you came along, and it’s like nothing I’ve ever done before, or felt.”

Derek stayed silent, but his hand was rubbing soothing little circles on his back, and one of his legs wound around his a little tighter. Ladies and gentlemen, we have a cuddler on the scene.

“I’m honestly feeling really confused right now,” he ventured, nuzzling Derek’s soft shirt with his nose. “I have a feeling that one of us should be apologising, or both of us should, but maybe neither of us really need to? Are we actually fighting right now?”

“We’re cuddling,” Derek grunted, and Stiles felt happy to just leave it at that.

 

. o O o .

 

They spent the next couple of hours watching  _‘The Dark Knight Rises’_ , Stiles and him tangled comfortably and haphazardly on the plush sofa. It was relaxed, and comfortable, and he could just  _feel_  the waves of contentment oozing off the younger man. His wolf was practically purring (unheard of, especially for a canine) in smug satisfaction at having his mate so close, and Derek – well, he was feeling pretty damn serene himself, despite feeling like a louse for all that time earlier that afternoon.

He didn’t know what made him start, but it was right around the time that Bane destroys that football pitch and wipes out the entirety of the Gotham Rogues team that he found himself beginning to talk.

“I had a pretty serious girlfriend. Before.”

Stiles flinched in his arms, not enough to jar off him altogether, but obvious enough. He didn’t move his head from the cushion of Derek’s torso, but one of his hands flailed out and grabbed the remote, and then turned down the volume on the blaringly-loud movie until it became background noise. He was glad that Stiles didn’t say anything, just plonked the remote back down onto the edge of the couch and curled his hand under his shoulder, holding him closer. It made it easier for him to gather his thoughts, to talk.

“After I finished my studies, I came back home and started working for Peter at the magazine. It was – it was really hard in the beginning. My family had all – they’d all gone. Laura had left. Peter had his own business, his own house, his own  _life_. I bought this apartment and felt alone all the time.” His voice went softer, and he felt the pain tingeing the words, his throat constricted with emotion. He was glad that Stiles wasn’t looking at him now, because he needed to push through this block and get the rest of the words out. The encouraging little squeeze at his shoulder, though, helped.

“I met her – Kate – through a mutual friend after a while. She was like nobody I’d ever met before. She was fearless, and confident, and charismatic. She charmed her way right past my wolf, who couldn’t stand her, and for a while, I thought I was in love with her. We dated for almost two years. It was pretty intense – at least, on my end.” He went quiet for a moment, running his hand down Stiles’ back, then back up again. “She was using me. I was hopelessly infatuated with her, but she gave me nothing in return. She became colder and colder, and made me feel like I’d done all these things wrong. We fought a lot – I was always in the wrong. We always made up when I bought her something expensive, like a Cartier watch, or a Hermès handbag. I never thought that she might have been using me until I proposed to her.”

He felt Stiles freeze then, the smooth curve of his spine rigid under his fingertips. Derek pressed forward, despite the hard, cold knot that’d settled in his chest at the memory of walking into the jewellery store, trailing behind Kate, who’d sashayed into the place as though she’d owned it. She’d been particularly cold that entire week, for reasons he hadn't even known – she’d slid her hand away every time he’d gone to hold it. He figured he must have said something stupid again.

“We bought a ring together. Unsurprisingly, it was a stupidly expensive one. It was a hideous-looking thing, all platinum-silver in colour and with a stupid-sized stone. Right after I bought the ring – she left town with the pharmacist on Main Street, and everything I’d ever given her, and then some.”

Stiles’ head snapped up then, his mouth opening and closing wordlessly as he stared back at him in abject horror. Granted, Derek thought to himself that his story was coming out more pathetic, more pitiable, than he meant it to. He didn’t need pity, because he didn’t deserve it. He’d fought tooth and nail against his instincts, against the wolf who’d despised that stupid woman who’d so casually ripped his heart to shreds, as if it had been nothing of value. Derek brought his hand up to tangle his fingers in the downy hairs at the base of Stiles’ neck, smelling the distress coming off Stiles and wanting to soothe it away somehow. It felt gratifying, that someone could feel distress  _for_ him, and it still boggled the mind to realize how fortunate he was to have stumbled upon Stiles in the first place.

“I was in a pretty messed up state for a while,” he murmured, feeling slightly unnerved under Stiles’ watchful stare as the younger man propped his chin on his chest, but blessedly said nothing. “I threw myself into my work. I didn’t go out. I wouldn’t even talk to Peter, but you know how scary the guy can get.” They both chuckled a little at this, glad to not be on the receiving end of Peter’s ire. “I did a shoot with Jeremy about a month after Kate left. He was coming onto me pretty strongly, and it just felt so satisfying to have someone pay attention to me like that after Kate had gone. So – we hooked up a few times.”

He levelled a look in Stiles’ direction, his face open and honest. “It was meaningless. All of it. Just a means of satisfying an itch that needed to be scratched. But I hated it, and I hated myself for it. So after the third time, I told him I didn’t want to have any more casual encounters, and ended it. Jeremy – he wasn’t used to being turned down. Kept hanging around, my uncle hired him a couple more times for the magazine, but nothing more happened after that. And then, a few months later, you came along. And – that’s it. That’s my story.”

They lay in silence for a little while after that, but if anything, Derek felt calm – as though a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders. And wow, wasn’t  _that_  the cheesiest, most overused cliché in the history of tropes? But Stiles tucked his head back under Derek’s chin, and everything seemed alright again.

“Thank you,” Stiles murmured. “I didn’t – you know, mean to pry. I’m glad you told me.”

“I’d been meaning to tell you for a while,” he admitted, because if he was being totally honest with himself, he’d wanted to come clean about everything for some time. His fingers were still wound in the other’s short hair, idly scratching circles in his scalp. “You okay?”

“I’m good, yeah,” Stiles hummed back, warmth colouring his voice. “Feeling a little homicidal at two particular people at the moment. Okay, maybe not a little, but a lot. But yeah, I’m okay.” He leaned up on his elbows and pressed a tender peck to Derek’s lips, fixing him with that small, secret smile that Derek knew was just for him. “We’re okay,” he added, and Derek felt warmth settle into every corner of his body, and his heart.

“Yeah, we are,” he replied with a smile of his own, and met Stiles halfway for another kiss. He’d meant to keep it short, but the unhurried way that Stiles dragged his fingertips up Derek’s chest and settled on his shoulders made heat bloom from his chest outwards, and so it felt like the most natural thing in the world to tilt his head just so and slot their lips together. He deepened the kiss first, swiping his tongue along the soft seam of Stiles’ lips. Stiles, as usual, was willing and pliant above him, and made an appreciative little hum when Derek sucked on his tongue.

The kiss remained slow and measured, even if, after a few minutes, Derek found his hands wandering. He was well aware that Stiles was keeping both hands curled up against his chest, happy to keep their touches at nothing more than a light pet. But their time for talking was well and truly over, and Derek felt that he’d been more than patient with how slow they’d taken their relationship. He didn’t stop kissing Stiles, he felt like he never wants to stop, but his hands ambled downwards, palms tracing the smooth dip of the other’s back, the slight curve of his slender waist and hips, before raking upwards again – this time, beneath the fabric of Stiles’ shirt. Even as warm as Stiles was, Derek’s werewolf blood ran hotter, and so his skin always felt a tad cool to the touch. Derek really wanted to find out how much hotter Stiles’ body could become. He dragged his hands up, palming acres of smooth, glorious skin, the shirt rucking up higher and higher until Derek’s palms were flat on Stiles’ shoulder-blades, fabric crumpled under Stiles’ armpits.

“Can we –?” he pulled back a fraction of an inch to murmur, because he was feeling heated all over, and needed to touch more of Stiles,  _right now_. Stiles nodded dumbly and sat upon his knees, pulling the shirt up and over his head to toss haphazardly onto the floor somewhere. Derek rose up to meet him halfway, wrapping one of his arms around Stiles’ pale waist and pressing open-mouthed kisses along Stiles’ chest, chasing the constellation of moles with his lips. His other hand snaked around and pulled on Stiles’ thigh, enough that Stiles was straddling his hips , and they were pressed flush against each other.

“Derek,” Stiles murmured, his voice low and just a touch irate as he crossly tugged on the shoulder-seam of his shirt. Chuckling, Derek complied, shucking off his own garment, and then they were chest to chest, kissing again, slow and deep and languid. His senses were on fire now, yearning to touch more, and he broke away long enough to kiss the curve of Stiles’ jaw, before trailing a path down that neck –  _that neck_ – to nuzzle tenderly at his collarbone. Stiles threaded his hands through Derek’s hair, mumbling contented-sounding nonsense words, until Derek ducked his head a little lower and sucked one of his nipples into his mouth. The ragged gasp that drew from the other went straight to his dick, and he took a minute or two to tease the tender bud to a peak with his tongue and lips, before moving onto its partner.

Stiles was growing hard against him, making these excitable little noises that did nothing but urge him on. His jeans were starting to feel decidedly too tight, especially when a nip against Stiles’ chest drew a hiss of pleasure from him, and he tugged Derek away by the hair to press a hot, greedy kiss against his lips. They were both hard now, Stiles’ hips making these aborted little grinds against his own that Derek was quite sure weren’t on purpose. Without meaning to, he growled deep in his throat at the thought, and was rewarded with Stiles’ body shivering atop of his, and Stiles’ hands flying down between them to scrabble madly at the buckle on Derek’s belt.

They were off the couch in milliseconds, Stiles looking mildly shocked that they were both on their feet (though he’s a little unsteady) as Derek pulled him by the hand to his bedroom, down the corridor and around the corner. He couldn’t help but push Stiles against the back of his bedroom door then, as the youth’s fingers still grappled uselessly to pull the end of the belt out from the keeper. He was glad that Stiles forewent a belt of his own, because his hands were nimbly popping the button on the front of his jeans and lowering the zip hurriedly, plunging both palms down the back and giving his ass a squeeze, earning a guttural moan from Stiles that he greedily swallowed with his lips. From the doorway to the bed was a bit of a battle with clothes, both of them struggling to kick off shoes and socks, refusing to stop kissing each other even as their fingers tangled with each other’s between them in an effort to strip.

“Too many clothes, too many, get them  _off_ ,” Stiles grumbled, and managed to topple backwards onto the mattress with an ‘ _oomph_ ’. Derek took this opportune moment to grab the bottom of Stiles’ jeans and yank back, hard enough to pull the offending trousers off altogether. With a yelp, Stiles found himself bereft of everything except his briefs, and he scrabbled backwards onto the mattress entirely, sitting up on his elbows and watching him with his honey-gold eyes, a look of pure awe on his face. Derek, standing at the foot of the bed, begged to differ – if only Stiles could see himself, all long limbs and surprisingly wide shoulders and lithe body. He looked perfect, sprawled on Derek’s bed – he should be a permanent fixture in his house, just like that – except without any clothes.

He was fighting turbulently with his wolf, desperate not to pounce and  _take_ , then and there. So when he undid his jeans and stepped out of them altogether, it was at a slightly less-frenzied pace than before. He put a knee on the bed, and then stalked on all fours up the length of it like the predatory creature he was, bracketing Stiles down with his limbs. The kiss that followed was no less fiery, but the heat had somehow turned down a notch, from frantic and hurried to a slow, steady simmer that made his blood feel like it was literally boiling in his veins.

“You have no idea what you do to me,” he choked out, guttural and low as he kissed down Stiles’ body, nipping here and there with blunt, human teeth to elicit those delicious little gasps. He travelled lower, until his index fingers were hooking onto the waistband of Stiles’ briefs, tented and damp at the front, and then he was lowering down the cotton garment to his thighs, exposing Stiles’ erection to the open air. And  _fuck,_  but if Stiles didn’t look positively good enough to eat like this.

“I think I have a pretty good ide- _ooooh,_ ” Stiles stuttered out, and then he was reduced to nothing but whimpers when Derek licked a hot stripe up the underside of his cock. There was precome already beading at the crown, and Derek lapped at it eagerly, savouring the bittersweet taste that was purely Stiles on his tongue. The underwear was pulled off altogether and forgotten somewhere as he curled his fingers around the base of Stiles’ erection and wrapped his lips around the rest and sucked. Stiles arched off the bed, not enough to move his hips because Derek’s other hand was pinning him down, but he made the most wonderful whine that bordered on a sob. Derek’s own hardness was stifled under the repressive cover of his own underwear, but he couldn’t seem to make up his mind on whether to palm himself through the fabric, or rut against Stiles’ hips like an animal. Both choices sounded pretty amazing right about now.

He pulled off Stiles altogether with a slick  _pop_  that bordered on obscene, and tried not to hate himself  _too_  much when Stiles made a devastated, betrayed sound. He tugged his own briefs off quickly, and then dove back in to kiss Stiles senseless, slotting himself in the perfect cradle of Stiles’ thighs as their dicks slid up against each other. It was a little too dry, but as he wrapped a hand around the both of them Stiles gave a startled little exclamation, and then things just became wetter and the slide became smoother, even as Stiles’ own long, delicate fingers joined his own. There was hardly any rhythm between them, but that was okay because there was delicious, hot friction, and Stiles’ voice was positively sinful as the octave climbed higher and higher, closer to orgasm. It shouldn’t have been a surprise when both of them came a handful of strokes later, since they’d been building up to it for so long. But Stiles’ cry was delectable, and Derek just had to grunt in response and swallow the tail end of it in another claiming kiss that lingered as he stroked both of them through it, until Stiles’ lips were red and plush with bruising, and he was a shuddering, shivering mess.

They embraced enough for Derek to get his breath back, and then he padded to the bathroom to grab a towel, which he ran under warm water long enough to dampen. When he returned to his bedroom, the sight of Stiles, limp and debauched, sent another jolt through his body and made his dick twitch with attention. He ignored it for the moment, though, and wiped clean the mess they both made on each other.

“Star treatment and everything,” Stiles slurred, boneless and sporting the goofiest smile on his face Derek had seen yet, and he couldn’t help but chuckle warmly. He tossed the towel away when he was done and snuggled up beside him, nuzzling his nose in the crook of Stiles’ neck and inhaling deeply. Stiles smelled like sweat and sex, his usual scent of paper and sweet sugary tang, and  _Derek_. It was enough to make his blood thrum faster through his veins, and he sucked a mark on the tender skin just under Stiles’ ear. It bloomed a delightful pinkish-red hue, and, satisfied with his work, he lapped at it with his tongue, appeasing his wolf’s instinct to mark.

“You look pretty pleased with yourself over that,” Stiles tried to huff, but it came out more of a snicker than anything else. Now that the edge had been taken off, Derek was feeling languid, unhurried as he took Stiles’ lips again in a slow kiss, sweeping wide arcs with his hands and arms as though he was trying to memorize the contours and planes of Stiles. Which, to be perfectly truthful, he always was. He could feel himself becoming hard again, surprised because it’s not common, but then again he was  _really turned on_  and  _Stiles was naked in his bed_ , which probably had something to do with it. Stiles was moaning pitiably about refractory periods and how difficult recuperation was on mere humans, but his own dick was giving interested little jolts, especially when he drew the flat of his tongue across Stiles’ nipple again.

“I feel pretty pleased,” he answered back, because damn, but he so totally did, to know that he’d made Stiles act that way. He leaned over a moment and dug out the bottle of lube from his nightstand, earning a raised eyebrow and impish grin from the other, but no smart comments. Instead, Stiles hooked his arms around Derek’s neck and kissed him again, except that when he pulled away, this time he nipped Derek’s chin lightly, playfully, and  _hello_ , his wolf had definitely taken notice, and so had his dick.

“You’re going to get such a big ego from all of this if you aren’t careful,” Stiles warned affably, even though he drew his knees up around Derek’s hips and bracketed him between them, brandishing the bottle of lube like a particularly hard-won dungeon key. Derek took the bottle with a smirk.

“A big ego’s not the only thing I have.”

“Oh my  _god_ , you – that was the  _worst_  – I don’t even have words right now,” Stiles flailed, covering his reddening cheeks with both hands.

“You like it,” Derek teased, because Stiles was absolutely adorable when he was flustered, and Derek just loved drawing embarrassed noises out of him at every opportunity. “You touch yourself at night thinking about it,” he chuckled, popping the lid on the tube and warming some on his fingers.

When Stiles stayed silent for a moment, but then murmured a soft _‘Yeah…’_ , Derek felt like all the air had been punched out of his lungs. Eyes wide and already half-hard, he met Stiles’ bashful eyes, and then couldn’t stop the predatory grin that curled over his lips.

“Oh,  _really_?” he purred, using his arm to hold himself inches over Stiles, his other lube-slick hand between them. “How often does this happen, hmm?”

“Quite a bit, to be honest,” Stiles stuttered back with forced cheer, even as the smile slid off his face and his eyes grew dark with lust. He was growing hard again beneath him, but now that they’d both already come once, the mad urgency to hurry things up was gone. Derek licked his lips at the sight, fingers travelling between Stiles’ spread legs. He circled a finger gently around Stiles’ pucker, teasing it with a slick fingertip.

“You ever touch yourself here?” Derek murmured softly, voice low and rough, lips ghosting over Stiles’ as he dragged the pad of his middle finger over it. “Ever touch here thinking about me?”

“ _Yeah_ ,” Stiles whispered, and Derek couldn’t help the groan that escaped his throat at the mental image that brought up. “But if you’re not going to follow through, I might as well get the job done myself.”

Derek chuckled at the empty threat and applied a fraction more pressure, feeling his digit sink in to the first knuckle. Stiles’ lips (on his stupidly gorgeous mouth that was always open and drove him to distraction) parted with another one of those luscious gasps, and Derek didn’t think anything could stop him anymore, not now. He pushed his finger in deeper, feeling Stiles hot and slick and tight, everything he imagined he’d be and more.

“You like that?” he asked, and Stiles nodded feverishly, producing another of those dear little sighs as he moved, slowly stretching him open. One finger turned into two, with Derek wondering – no,  _knowing_  – that he was absolutely ruined for anybody else and addicted to Stiles and his noises, and by the time he was adding a third, Stiles was utterly wrecked.

“Come on, come  _on,_ I’m dying here!” he sobbed, tugging on Derek’s shoulder impatiently. As much as Derek was willing to set a torturously slow pace to get Stiles ready, he was at his limit, and rock hard, and if he didn’t get inside of Stiles in the next thirty seconds, he was pretty sure that he was going to spontaneously combust.

“Condom,” he muttered, pulling his fingers out and reaching for the nightstand.

“I’m clean! I’m fine! Are you okay?” Stiles all but shrieked, pulling at his forearm, clamping his knees around Derek’s hips.

“I’m – yeah, werewolves don’t –”

“Good, great, wonderful! Derek if you don’t fuck me  _right now_  you are in  _serious trouble_!” There was a slight note of hysteria on the end of that threat, so Derek bypassed the drawer altogether, slicked himself up with a cursory hand, and shoved a pillow under Stiles’ hips.

“Yes, you’re a complete gentleman, there’s your positive reaffirmation for the day, now hurry up,” Stiles sniped.

“Bossy,” he retorted, but it was with a warm smile, and he kissed Stiles, long and languorous and deep, as he pushed inside of him. He went slowly, one measured inch after another, and by the time his hips were against Stiles’ they were both panting.

“Shit, Stiles,” he gritted out with the effort to keep himself still, framing Stiles’ face between his forearm. “Are you – you okay?”

“Fine. Yeah, fine,” Stiles panted, his heartbeat a frantic tattoo loud in his ears. The scent of pain slowly faded until it disappeared, overpowered by the heady aroma of sex and arousal. He rolled his hips experimentally, and Stiles’ scent spiked, punching a groan out of him and a moan from Stiles.

They started off slow, relaxed, Derek kept a gentle tempo to the undulation of their joined bodies. Stiles was perfection, all slick heat and grinding hips and uttered gasps, and when Derek changed his angle slightly and he snapped his head back, arched and said ‘ _There_ , Derek,  _right there_  –!’ it took all his self-control not to fly apart at the seams. Stiles’ body made the most mouth-watering, filthy sounds as he pushed into him, pliant and eager and willing, and, despite having come already, it wasn’t long before both  of them were balancing finely on the edge of orgasm.

Derek’s gentle, rolling rhythm had turned into a fast, ruthless pace, punctuated by the wet sounds of their joining and Stiles’ little ‘ _oh_ ’ sounds, coming with increasing frequency. Then Stiles dragged him down for a kiss, sloppy and almost missing each other’s mouths completely, and he grunted ‘Harder, Derek,  _fuck_ ,  _harder_ ’, and when Derek hitched his hips up and complied, Stiles fucking  _keened_. He was scrabbling at the sheets under him, mewling and lust-crazed, and Derek couldn’t resist latching his teeth on that sweet curve of his skin, at the juncture where his neck meets his shoulder. He bit down with blunt human incisors and canines, hard enough to bruise but not enough to puncture the skin, and that was enough to send Stiles over the edge. With a cry, he was arching off the bed and trembling, his mouth open and his body tight and taut like a bowstring. A handful of thrusts and Derek was joining him over the edge, growling and moaning as he came inside of him, his vision going white at the edges.

He took a few moments to get his bearings, but when he did, he carefully slipped out of Stiles (his wolf was devastated at this, but he figures there’d be time enough later for it) and collapsed on the bed beside him. They were both breathing heavily as though they’d run a marathon, but Stiles’ breath took longer to settle into a normal rhythm. Derek lay on his back and tried not to preen too hard at finally,  _finally_ , getting what he’d always desired, but it was a pretty difficult thing to accomplish when his wolf was equally as smug. When Stiles eventually rolled over and draped himself across his body like an overly-affectionate octopus, he couldn’t quite help the proud smirk.

“Smug bastard,” Stiles muttered, pecking him on the lips quickly before burrowing into the crook of his neck. “I’m not getting up for a while, so make yourself comfortable.”

Derek shifted a little and did so. When Stiles hummed in appreciation, trailed his fingertips over his bare chest and whispered ‘Love you’, his entire body froze.

“What did you say?” he asked quickly, turning his head and fixing Stiles with a shocked look.

“I said I love you,” Stiles replied, nonplussed, his eyebrows quirked in amusement. “What, haven’t you heard me say it before?”

“No,” Derek said, “That was the first time.”

“Oh.” Stiles looked incredibly embarrassed, dropping his eyes to Derek’s chin. “I thought – I said it in my head and while thinking of you so many times that, I mean – I thought I would have said it out loud by now.” He raised his eyes, and said “I love you, Derek Hale,” and there wasn’t even the slightest waver in his heartbeat. Derek felt like he could explode into fireworks at any moment.

“You’re such a dork,” he answered back, kissing Stiles hard (which earned him a squawk of protest), but when he pulled up the comforter over them and tackled Stiles under the covers and whispered the same words back in his ears, he was rewarded with a kiss and a laugh as bright as day.


	12. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just re-sorting the story with the Epilogue as a separate chapter, and not as part of Chapter 11.
> 
> On the bright side - the entire fic has now been beta'd! Which means it is FINALLY COMPLETE! AND I AM HAPPY WITH IT! *pops party poppers* Also there's a teensy bit more content scattered throughout all of the chapters, just to make a little more sense. Also more jokes because wahey, I can!
> 
> Millions of thanks to my beta BookGeekGrrl for undertaking this mammoth task. I LOVE YOU BABE ♥

“What on Earth possibly possessed you to buy even _more_ baby stuff?” Derek deadpanned, unimpressed, holding up the tiny pair of woollen socks.

“You can’t seriously look at those and tell me they aren’t absolutely, positively perfect for the baby, right?” Stiles waggled his eyebrows in reply, depositing his armload of plastic bags at the door to the nursery.

“Weren’t you and Steven only meant to buy formula and diapers?” he asked, spotting _another_ mobile _and_ a stuffed giraffe in the bags.

“Oh, hush, you uncultured heathen!” Stiles waved him away, snatching up the little wooly socks in the shape of paws and depositing them neatly in a lemon-yellow chest of drawers. “I know for a _fact_ that you love my decorating skills, you think whatever I buy is _adorable_. Laura’s gonna see them and freak. Out. At least _she_ appreciates my sense of humour.”

“Your sense of humour scares me sometimes,” Laura hummed from the doorway, Steven right behind her, bending low to pick up the rest of the bags. He was already carrying an armload himself, and only looked mildly guilty. “And Der-bear, weren’t you saying you planned to have the cot finished by now?”

“’S’ not my fault that all they come with is one measly Allen key,” Derek grumbled, shooting daggers at the IKEA monstrosity still mostly in pieces beside him. He couldn’t find fault in Laura calling him his silly childhood moniker, not when at seven and a half months she was round and resplendent, smelling of pup and milk and family. Stiles cooed at her belly again, rubbing a long-fingered hand over the gentle swell of her stomach, now completely at ease with the touchy nature of werewolves.

“Stiles ‘n I found these wall stickers!” Steven proclaimed proudly, his thick Irish brogue heavy with satisfaction as he pulled from one of the bags a large packet of decals, the label on the front illustrating cute, cartoony wolves dancing, playing and leaping over moons.

“Dude! Perfect!” Stiles grinned, waving to the newly-painted walls with gusto. “I think we have some green paint left over from some of Laura’s shop signs somewhere – wouldn’t it be really cool if we painted some grass on the bottom of one of the walls for the stickers?”

“Sounds great!” Steven enthused back, sandy-blond hair flopping over twinkling green eyes. Derek figured that, even if the baby does inherit Laura’s awful tastes for sitcom television and asparagus, at least they’d be one hell of a looker.

“ _First_ and foremost, sweetie, you and Stiles are going to do the mountain of dishes the two of you somehow created this morning, just making pancakes,” she pointed an accusatory finger at Stiles and Steven respectively, “And _then_ you promised you’d clear the rest of the boxes from the garage. I’m pretty sure that, since Stiles isn’t doing anything for the remainder of the time Derek’s setting up the crib, he can help you out with it.”

“You know this is seriously cutting into me and Derek’s moving-in-together bliss time, right?” Stiles whined petulantly.

“It’s not my fault you two have only _just_ decided to take the plunge and share living space _now_ ,” Laura shot back with a grin, crossing her arms over her bump. “And knowing you, Stilinski, you’d just make Derek do all the work while fawning over his perfect pecs or amazing ass, or whatever other alliteration stroke of genius you’ve come up with to gush all over my baby brother.”

“Fun sucker,” Stiles huffed, “Buzz Killington. Negative Nancy. Way to poop on all my parties.”

“Sticks and stones, Stiles, sticks and stones,” she laughed, leading a forlorn Steven from the room.

“Sometimes I wonder why I missed her,” Derek said to nobody in particular, still staring daggers at the pitifully unassembled crib. It was difficult to put something together when you couldn’t just punch it into submission.

“Yeah, well, you’re the one that suggested we help them out with the nursery today, of all days,” Stiles returned easily, but he wrapped his arms around Derek’s neck with a dopey grin on his face regardless, and planted a kiss right on his lips. He smelled of warmth and vibrant early-summer days, of happiness and the outdoors and _them_. “I know you’re secretly an ooey, gooey marshmallow of a wolf, Derek Hale. You’re so sappy, I’m surprised you haven’t bought timeshares in Canada.”

“Aren’t you hilarious.” Derek monotoned, pocketing the offending Allen key and putting his hands on Stiles’ hips. “You really should give up your day job and become a comedian.”

“No way, man, the guys at the museum are thinking of sending me out on secondment to Peru next year, and there’s no way I’m seeing Machu Picchu without you to document it. You might get another photo book out of it, you know. ‘ _Derek Hale’s Sexy Guide to the Incas’_. That’d sell.”

“Sexy Guide to the Incas?”

“Don’t raise your eyebrows at me, good sir. Maybe sneak a picture of your abs in there a couple of times. For fanservice. For me. Actually, just for me. You know what, never mind, don’t show anybody your delectable abs but me.”

“You are really something,” Derek chuckled.

“Yeah, but you love it,” Stiles scrunched his face up, looking somewhat like an adorable (if odd) pug. Derek’s noncommittal hum earned him a firm slap on the shoulder, and another kiss because (really) Stiles wasn’t fooling anybody if he thought he could keep his hands off Derek at any given time. To be fair, though, Derek was the same with Stiles.

“Those wolf stickers _are_ pretty adorable,” Derek acquiesced when they’d finally pulled apart.

“I’m glad you think so. I bought a packet of them for us, when we decide to baby it up too,” Stiles grinned, “And those paw booties. I figure, we get our stuff sorted out, and use the baby as a trial-run, and then see where that takes us in a couple of years, yeah?”

Derek didn’t get back to working on the crib for quite some time, because he was too busy kissing Stiles breathless and wondering how in god’s green earth he came to be so damn lucky.

 

**THE END**


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